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I 


A 


PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA 


NEW-YORK    CITY. 


CORNELIUS     MATHEWS. 


NEW- YORK  : 

JOHN    S.    TAYLOR,    17    ANN-STREET. 

1853. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1853,  by 
JOHN    S.    TAYLOR, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of   the  District   Court  of  the  United  States 
for  the  Southern  District  of  New- York. 


JOHN  J    REED,  Print., 
16  Spruce-Street. 


SUB-DIVISIONS. 


Introduction......  ........ 5 

Walk  Preliminary 10 

Disadvantages  of  Being  Born  a  New-Yorker....   16 

Broadway * 30 

Phineas  T.  Barnum,  Esquire 38 

The  Happy  Family 50 

Way-Sidr  Histories...., 55 

Little  Trappan • .*..     56 

The  Hairless  Horse 66 

Disbanded  Lamp-Posts 69 

The  Horse-Radish  Enthusiast 73 

A  Short  Excursion *.« 78 

The  New  York   Fireman 92 

A  Grand  Pageant 102 

A  Director  of  Pageants 107 

The  Sempstress --•     .'.09 


Abdurd  Calculations 120 

The  Bowery 124 

The  Uproarious  Young  Gentleman 137 

'*  Tickets  for  Greenwood." 143 

Mrs.  Always 152 

Seeing  the  Bear  Dance 159 

Chatham-Street 161 

Reforming  the  World  by  Wholesale 170 

Our  Festivals 173 

On  the  Road 181 

The  Newsboys1 182 

The  Crystal  Palace 195 

Bird's-Eye  View  of  the  City 203 


THE 


PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA 


OF 

NEW-YORK    CITY. 


In  the  little  canvass  I  propose  to  open  before 
you,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  have  attempted 
to  paint  a  home  picture.  The  seven  colors  of 
the  rainbow  have  been  pretty  freely  used,  I 
may  say,  quite  exhausted,  by  previous  artists  : 
there  is  little  more  to  be  clone  with  them.  We 
have  had  panoramas  of  the  Thames,  of  Cali- 
fornia, the  Mississippi,  the  Holy  Land,  gor- 
geous with  all  the  tints  of  the  palette.  What, 
then,  is  left  to  me,  that  I  too  invite  you  to  a 
panoramic  exhibition  ?    There  is  a  single  un* 


b  INTRODUCTION. 

employed  color,  common  writing-ink,  and  for 
a  pencil,  the  old,  familiar,  and  easy-motioned 
grey  goose-quill.  With  the  aid  of  these,  and 
your  kind  indulgence,  I  shall  endeavor  to  body 
forth  something  for  your  entertainment,  by 
unrolling  before  you  the  streets  and  characters 
of  a  great  city,  which  I  have  studied  from  my 
boyhood — each  high -way  and  by-way  of  which 
I  may  say  that  I  know,  as  familiarly  as  the 
dog-eared  pages  of  Robinson  Crusoe  or  the 
Pilgrim's  Progress.  In  an  hour  or  two  we 
will  accomplish  lengths  and  breadths  of  this 
town  wThich  it  would  take  you,  unaided,  twenty 
years,  more  or  less,  to  traverse.  In  this  Pen 
and-Ink  Panorama,  you  wTill  have  a  street  per- 
spective ;  a  sketch  of  character ;  we  shall  oc- 
casionally stop  and  visit  an  interior ;  it  may 
be  a  place  of  amusement,  a  reading-room,  a 
little  quaint  old  school :  by  way  of  relief  and 
landscape  to  our  gallery,  we  may  take  an  ex- 
cursion out  of  town,  up  the  North  River,  or  I 
across  the  East,  to  a  suburban  burial-place.    I 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

invite  you,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  to  bear  me 
company.  You  must  be  content,  I  give  you 
notice,  to  see  objects  for  the  time  through  my 
glasses — which,  for  your  sakes,  I  keep  as 
bright  and  clear  as  I  can. 

Do  not  think  time  wasted  if  I  loiter,  even  at 
a  penny  show,  or  pause  to  meditate  by  an  an- 
cient lamp-post.  Do  not  despise  the  home- 
spun dresses  in  which  my  characters  appear. 

It  is  true  that  this  panorama,  now  about  to 
unroll,  relates  to  these  common  streets.  But, 
I  pray  you,  are  not  these  very  streets  tho- 
roughfares for  those  creatures  of  divine  make, 
men  and  women,  as  good,  as  kind,  as  friendly, 
and  noble  as  any  that  walk  the  earth  ?  I  for 
one  avow  plainly  that  I  love  New  York — and 
I  will  seek  to  make  you  love  it,  too,  even  with 
all  its  cares  and  troubles,  and  wicked  people, 
and  bad  ways. 

I  sometimes  fancy  that  there  is  no  city  in 
the  world  like  this  very  New  York  of  ours, 
that  there  never  has  been  and  never  will   be. 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

In  one  of  these  suppositions,  at  least,  I  am 
probably  right.  There  is  no  living  rival  or  re- 
semblance to  our  metropolis,  in  many  of  its 
peculiarities  and  characteristics.  "Whether 
hereafter  any  city  just  like  it  will  spring  into 
existence,  no  one,  except  the  happy  mortal 
who  carries  the  spy-glass  of  prophecy,  can 
possibly  foresee.  I  love  to  go  back  into  old 
history,  and  to  fancy  that  it  has  in  times  past 
had  a  twin-brother,  as  is  curiously  illustrated 
in  more  than  one  trait  and  usage,  which  iden- 
tify old  Rome  (which  was  at  its  height  of  pow- 
er and  glory  a  couple  of  thousand  years  ago) 
with  modern  New  York  ;  proving  that  human 
nature  is  very  nearly  the  same,  whether  under 
the  toga,  worn  with  so  much  dignity  by  the 
Roman  Senators,  as  we  see  on  the  stage,  or 
under  the  dress-coat  made  by  Mr.  Snip-Snap, 
the  Broadway  or  Bowery  tailor.  For  in- 
stance, we  knowr  it  is  the  fashion  of  our  popu- 
larity-seeking politicians  on  election  day,  to 
make  their  appearance  in  the  neighborhood  of 


►  INTRODUCTION.  9 

the  polls  in  a  fusty  hat  and  shabby  coat,  to  se- 
cure the  sympathy  of  their  humbler  fellow- 
citizens.  This  is  an  old  "  dodge,"  and  was 
played  by  candidates  for  office,  with  the  Ro- 
man populace ;  those  self-sacrificing  patriots 
beating  our  own,  by  allowing  their  beards  to 
grow,  and  emptying  a  pan  of  ashes  upon  their 
heads,  to  make  them  look  destitute  and  ple- 
beian. That  the  Roman  cobblers,  who  were 
great  demagogues,  were  accustomed  to  lead 
the  mob  about  for  the  purpose  of  getting 
themselves  into  work  by  wearing  their  shoes 
out,  we  have  high  authority  for  believing. 
Our  New  York  politicians,  on  the  other  hand, 
know  a  trick  worth  two  of  that — they  inflame 
the  people,  and  hurry  them  off  at  a  high  trot 
to  a  church,  a  flour  store,  a  printing  office,  and 
run  them  out  of  breath  so  that  they  may  have 
the  satisfaction  of  filling  their  bellies  with  east 
wind,  in  an  empty  and  boisterous  harangue. 
Like  occasions  breed  like  results ;  and  our  at- 
tention is  often  called  to  this  parallel  between 


10  WALK  PRELIMINARY. 

two  great  cities  of  ancient  and  modern  times, 
by  proceedings  like  those  of  a  late  meeting  on 
the  affairs  of  Cuba,  in  the  Park,  in  which  fig- 
ured Captain  Rynders — 

Excuse  me,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  I  do  not 
intend  to  become  either  personal  or  political. 
Now  to  the  raising  of  the  curtain,  for  a  view 
of  the  promised  entertainment.  That  you 
may  plainly  understand  the  humor  in  which 
this  panoramic  exhibition  is  got  up,  before  we 
enter  upon  the  grand  scenes,  let  us  take  a 
short 

WALK  PRELIMINARY. 

Has  it  ever  happened  to  you,  my  friends,  to 
go  into  the  streets  at  an  unusual  hour,  at  a 
time,  I  mean,  different  from  your  customary 
routine,  earlier  or  later,  when  the  city  has  not 
arrived  at  or  is  past  that  state  of  development, 
in  which  you  are  generally  accustomed  to  see 
it  ?  You  must  know,  if  you  take  any  note  of 
Huch  things,  that  each  hour  of  the  twenty  four 


WALK  PRELIMINARY.  1 1 

in  a  metropolis  has  its  peculiar  dress  and  un- 
dress, as  much  as  a  fine  lady — who  may  be, 
early  in  the  morning,  a  housewife  out  of  curl — 
somewhat  later  a  tidy  receiver  of  calls — then  a 
well-attired  promenader — afterwards  in  dinner 
costume — and  again  operatically  apparelled. 
Having  occasion,  on  a  late  morning,  to  make 
a  journey  into  the  city  a  couple  of  hours  be- 
fore my  usual  time  of  appearance,  so  different 
was  its  aspect,  everything  seemed  to  me  more 
like  a  dream  than  a  reality.  I  scarcely  knew 
myself  to  be  in  New  York.  There  were  no 
merchants  abroad — no  women — none  of  the 
old  familiar  faces.  I  seemed  to  have  lost  my 
reckoning,  and  in  the  dreamy  humor  brought 
on  in  this  change  of  the  scene,  everything 
seemed  new,  peculiar,  strange,  and  somewhat 
fantastical.  The  horses  in  the  early  omnibuses 
I  regarded  as  toy-horses,  not  the  oat-fed  trot- 
ters of  the  middle  of  the  day  ;  the  omnibuses 
I  regarded  as  toys  ;  and  the  drivers,  up  there, 
as  a  sort  of  mandarins  or  queer  kind  of  ghosts. 


12  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

I  remember  looking  upon  such  of  the  horses 
as  pricked  up  their  ears  and  galloped  briskly, 
as  being  a  little  out  of  their  heads,  in  taking  a 
pride  in  drawing  the  stages  :  while  such  as 
drooped  and  ambled  along,  appeared  to  me  to 
have  a  greater  stock  of  common  sense,  and  a 
much  more  correct  appreciation  of  the  busi- 
ness they  were  engaged  in.  The  blank  streets 
stretched  away,  like  the  avenues  of  Venice  or 
far-off  Thebes  in  the  cosmoramas  at  the  Mu- 
seum, and  one  or  two  prompt  maid-servants 
in  the  windows  looked  as  if  they  were  at  work 
by  sunrise,  in  Bagdad.  I  suppose  it  is  the 
power  of  so  voluntarily  stepping  out  of  the 
familiar  round  and  regarding  things  about  us 
in  a  novel  light,  pretty  much  as  an  intelligent 
spirit  or  angel  might,  which  the  world  has 
agreed  to  call  genius.  By  familiarity  we  lose 
the  sense  of  objects  about  us — they  cease  to 
be  men,  houses,  streets,  and  become  mere  ma- 
terial forms — differing  a  little  in  height,  color, 
or  shape,  but  having  no  appreciable  character 


WALK    PRELIMINARY.  13 

or  distinguishableness,  one  from  another.  In 
the  humor  to  which  I  refer,  a  young  man  who 
walked  before  me  in  the  ordinary  sack  of  the 
season,  and  with  the  common  beaver  hat  and 
black  leather  gloves,  did  not  seem  to  me,  as 
no  doubt  he  was,  a  clerk  or  shop-tender  on  his 
way  to  the  store  or  counting  room — but  some- 
thing queer,  curious,  inexplicable.  The  absur- 
dity of  his  dress,  which  was  not  in  the  least 
degree  absurd,  seen  at  the  usual  hours  and  in 
the  accustomed  connection  with  other  things, 
came  upon  me  like  a  revelation.  I  could  not, 
for  a  moment,  regard  him  as  any  relation  of 
mine  ;  but  kept  contemplating  him  for  a  long 
distance,  as  some  strange,  outlandish  creature, 
newly  landed.  After  him,  from  a  cross  street, 
my  eye  encountered  another  spectacle  in  a 
roundabout  of  cloth,  with  a  tin  kettle  at  the 
end  of  his  arm ;  a  workman,  no  doubt,  on  the 
way  to  his  job.  Nothing  ever  seemed  more 
ridiculous — so  belittled  and  disturbed  my  idea 
of  a  hitman  being,  as  to  believe  that  this  grown- 


14  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

up  creature — for  I  noticed  that  his  short-cut 
locks  were  grizzled — should  have  gone  on  or 
come  on,  as  I  am  sure  he  had,  from  the  be- 
ginning of  his  manhood  to  this  grey  time  of 
life,  doing  nothing  but  wear  a  roundabout  and 
carry  a  tin  can  in  his  hand.  I  never  felt  more 
forcibly  in  my  life  that  man  is  a  fallen  creature, 
and  that  Adam  had  something  to  answer  for. 
It  is  not  worth  while  to  trouble  you  further 
with  the  speculations  of  the  morning,  except 
to  say,  that  when  you  are  tired  of  books  from 
their  everlasting  similitudes  and  wearisome 
repetitions — if  you  would  have  a  novelty  of 
sensation,  stir  out  of  bed  an  hour  earlier  than 
usual  or  tarry  from  it  an  honr  later  in  a  walk 
down  Broadway — and  you  will  have  inter- 
chapters  and  original  episodical  views,  equal 
to  our  best  living  writers  of  fiction. 


It  is  in  this  very  spirit,  taking  the   city  by 
surprise  and  unaware  of  our  eye  of  observa- 


INCIDENTAL.  15 

tion,  that  we  are  now  venturing  fortn.  And 
what  kind  of  a  panorama  is  it  that  (after  all 
these  preliminaries  of  expectation)  I  now  call 
your  attention  to?  To  what  new  region,  Mr. 
Panoramist,  do  you  invite  us  with  so  clamor- 
ous a  tinkle  of  the  bell  ?  There  are  several 
unexplored  quarters  to  wThich  you  might  be 
taken.  For  instance,  there  is  China  ;  we  have 
no  panoramic  painting  of  that.  There  is  the 
great  Desert  of  Sahara — a  very  fine  subject; 
and  two  or  three  hundred  more  remote  pro- 
vinces of  the  Earth.  Turning  my  back  upon 
all  these,  will  you  believe,  will  you  not  laugh 
in  my  face,  when  I  announce  that  I  have  se- 
lected as  a  subject,  this  very  hurry-skurry, 
hum-drum,  hodge-podge,  harum-skarum  City 
of  New  York  ? 

It  is,  as  I  have  acknowledged,  a  plain,  home- 
spun  subject,  and  it  has  its  difficulties.  So 
peculiar,  variable  and  shifting — such  is  its  mis- 
cellaneousness  and  the  constant  change  of  its 
aspect,  by  the  infusion  of  new  material  from 


16  PEN-AND-INK   PANORAMA. 

all  quarters,  that  it  is  no  easy  matter  for  a  Na- 
tive to  keep  his  foothold  and  point  of  observa- 
tion ;  in  fact,  and  not  to  the  matter 
in  the  least,  I  might  as  well  at  the  outset  avow 
plainly,  in  this  respect, 

THE  DISADVANTAGES  OF  BEING  BORN  A  NEW 
YORKER. 

A  delightful  humorist  (a  noble-hearted  Eng- 
lishman by  the  way)  once  presented  to  the 
world  a  capital  and  conclusive  paper  on  the 
inconvenience  of  being  hanged ;  and,  prompt- 
ed by  my  own  experiences,  I  shall  be  able  to 
establish,  I  am  pretty  sure,  that  one  might  as 
well  be  hanged  as 

This  is  broaching  the  matter  too  bluntly; 
I  must  approach  the  grand  Quod  Erat  De- 
monstrandum with  a  little  preparation.  It 
will  not  do  to  state,  in  so  many  words,  that  it 
would  have  been  more  comfortable  for  one  to 
have  been  born  a  Carribean,  with  a  privilege 
of  wielding  a  club  in  his  own  defense ;    or   a 


A    DISADVANTAGE.  17 

Choctaw,  with  the  inalienable  natural  right  of 
cleaving  my  enemy's  skull  with  a  tomahawk ; 
or  a  Hindoo,  with  idols  of  one's  own  to  wor- 
ship, and  not  imposed  on  me  by  other  nations, 
although  they  might  be  of  wood  ;  or,  in  a 
word,  anybody  else,  or  anywhere  else,  than  a 
free  republican  citizen  of  this  vast  confede- 
racy. I  propose  to  begin  at  the  beginning, 
and  to  show,  in  my  own  simple  history,  the 
utter  absurdity  of  being  born  an  American  ; 
that  in  the  creation  of  an  American,  Nature 
intends  a  huge  joke  ;  or,  to  sum  up  all  in  brief, 
that  it  may  be  fairly  doubted,  if  not  entirely 
demonstrated,  whether,  properly  speaking, 
there  is  any  such  place  as  America.  I  am  wil- 
ling to  admit  that  the  title  "  America"  does 
appear  in  various  geographies,  gazetteers,  and 
other  publications  of  a  like  kind :  also,  that 
there  is  a  certain  considerable  superficial  space 
marked  off  in  many,  perhaps  in  all  of  the 
maps  or  atlases  in  common  use,  which  passes 
also    under    that    designation ;    but    whether 


18  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

there  is  any  distinctive  country,  with  its  own 
proper  customs,  habits,  and  self-relying  usages, 
answering  to  that  name,  or  any  such  charac- 
teristic creature,  representing  such  customs, 
habits,  and  usages,  called  American,  will  ap- 
pear or  not,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  when  we 
have  advanced  a  little  further  in  the  subject. 

I  was  first  led  to  entertain  doubts  in  this 
way.  It  was  the  custom  of  my  father — peace 
to  his  memory  ! — to  have  me  accompany  him 
to  the  shop  of  the  barber,  where  he  submitted 
every  other  day  to  his  quarterly  shaving.  In 
these  visits,  it  happened,  not  rarely,  when  the 
shop  was  well  attended  with  customers,  that 
I,  a  lad  perhaps  some  five  or  six  years  of  age, 
was  prompted  to  mount  a  chair,  and  recite  or 
improvise  a  brief  oration  on  some  current  sub- 
ject arising  at  the  moment  ;  and  my  success 
was  often  so  considerable  that  I  received  an 
honorary  gratuity  of  a  sixpenny  piece — which 
altogether  inspired  me  with  the  feeling  that 
native  talent  was  held  in  high  esteem  among 


DISADVANTAGES.  19 

my  countrymen.  This  opinion  I  cherished 
and  held  fast  till  my  tenth  year,  when  my  mind 
was  disturbed  by  the  unusual  commotion  in 
the  same  shop  at  the  announcement  of  the 
death  of  the  British  Premier,  George  Canning, 
and  the  appearance,  shortly  thereafter,  in  an 
honorary  gilt  frame,  of  a  colored  head  of  the 
said  Canning,  assigned  to  the  most  conspicu- 
ous position  on  the  wall.  This  shock  was  fol- 
lowed up  with  a  pair  of  boots,  purchased  for 
my  juvenile  wearing,  which  I  heard  named 
Wellingtons,  and  which,  vended  as  they  were 
freely  in  my  own  city  here  of  New  York,  I 
learned  were  so  named  in  honor  of  a  distin- 
guished general  who  had  spent  his  life  in  fight- 
ing the  battles  of  the  English  Government. 

As  I  grew  in  years,  evidences  thickened 
upon  me.  To  say  nothing  of  Liverpool  coal, 
Kidderminster  carpets,  and  such  indoor  impor- 
tations, I  found  the  same  shadow  crossing  my 
path  in  the  public  streets,  laid  out  by  the  same 
native  corporation.     I  struck  out  to  the  east, 


20  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

and  found  myself  rambling  in  Albion  Place; 
I  wandered  to  the  west,  and  landed  in  Abing- 
don Square  ;  I  pushed  for  the  north,  and  came 
square  upon  the  snag  of  London  Terrace.  1 
used  to  rub  my  eyes,  and  wonder  whether  I 
was  in  the  New  World  or  the  Old  ;  and  wTas 
afflicted  with  the  uncomfortable  sensation  of 
the  man  who  went  to  sleep  in  the  mountains, 
and  waking  up  after  a  twenty  years'  nap, 
opened  his  eyes  under  a  republican  govern- 
ment, although  his  slumbers  had  begun  under 
a  royal  rule.  Mine  was  merely  reversed  :  I 
fancied  I  had  slept  backwards  to  the  good  old 
times  of  George  the  Third,  and  wTas  surprised 
to  miss  the  statue  of  that  excellent  king  from 
its  old  post  of  authority  in  the  centre  of  the 
Bowling  Green,  next  to  the  Battery. 

When  I  had  grown  up  to  be  old  enough  to 
take  an  interest  in  books,  I  found  the  same 
happy  delusion  still  maintained.  I  put  out  my 
hand,  as  I  suppose  boys  do  in  other  countries, 
to  seize  upon  some  ballad,  history,  or  legend 


DISA  DVANTAGES.  2  1 

connected  with  the  fortunes  of  my  own  peo- 
ple ;  and  I  found  twenty  busy  gentlemen  zeal- 
ously filling  it  with  English  publications. — 
Whatever  my  humor  might  be,  to  laugh  or 
cry,  for  a  glimpse  of  high  life  or  low,  for 
verse  or  prose,  there  was  always  one  of  these 
industrious  gentlemen  at  my  side,  urging  on 
my  attention  a  book  by  some  writer  a  great 
way  off,  which  had  no  more  to  do  with  my 
own  proper  feelings  or  the  sentiments  of  my 
country,  than  if  they  had  been  Persian  or 
Patagonian — only  they  were  in  the  English 
language,  always  English.  I  said  to  myself, 
as  I  began  to  consider  these  matters,  I'll  take 
to  the  newspapers  ;  surely  these,  as  belonging 
to  the  country,  published  in  the  country,  and 
by  men  like  myself,  must  make  me  ample 
amends  for  being  practised  upon  in  the  bound 
books :  1  will  read  the  newspapers.  Never 
was  boy,  thirsting  after  patriotic  reading,  more 
completely  duped.  One  after  the  other,  here 
were  police  reports,  with  slang  phrases   that 


22  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

certainly  never  originated  in  any  of  the  courts 
or  prisons  of  the  New  World  ;  elaborate  ac- 
counts of  prize-fights  and  cricket  matches,  and 
what  not  of  that  sort ;  and  withal,  such  an  out- 
pouring of  disagreeable  associations,  that  the 
shadow  fell  upon  my  spirit  again,  and  I  was 
more  than  ever  clear  upon  the  point,  that  who- 
ever had  the  naming  of  this  quarter  of  the 
globe  in  the  maps  and  gazetteers,  had  clearly 
committed  an  egregious  mistake  in  calling  it 
America  :  he  should  have  named  it  Little  Bri- 
tain. 

In  spite  of  these  discouraging  convictions,  I 
saw  that  the  people  about  me  were  given  to 
laughter,  and,  in  a  way  of  their  own,  had  some- 
thing of  a  relish  for  merriment.  I  have  it  at 
last,  I  said  to  myself:  they  let  these  heavy 
dogs  of  Englishmen  name  their  streets  and 
edit  their  newspapers  ;  but  when  they  come 
to  anything  elegant,  sportive,  and  cheerful, 
they  take  the  matter  into  their  own  hands.  I'll 
go  to  the  Museum  and  see  what  the  Ameri- 


DISADVANTAGES.  23 

cans,  my  fellow-countrymen,  are  about  there. 
Will  you  believe  it  ?— as  I  live,  the  first  object 
I  encountered  in  the  hall  was  the  cast-off  state 
coach  of  Her  Majesty,  Queen  Adelaide,  so 
blocking  up  the  way  that  I  made  no  attempt 
to  advance  further  ;  but,  turning  on  my  heel, 
I  determined  to  indemnify  myself  at  one  of  the 
theatres.  I  struck  for  the  nearest,  and,  as  if 
in  conspiracy  with  the  state  coach,  the  first 
notes  I  caught  from  the  orchestra  were  c(  God 
Save  the  Queen,"  played  with  great  energy  by 
the  musicians,  and  vigorously  applauded  by  a 
portion  of  the  audience.  I  tried  another  house 
immediately,  where  I  was  entertained  during 
my  short  stay,  by  an  old  gentleman  in  a  wig, 
(unlike  any  other  old  gentleman  I  had  ever 
seen  in  my  life,)  who  was  denouncing  some- 
body or  other,  not  then  visible,  as  having  con- 
ducted himself  in  a  manner  altogether  unwor- 
thy an  "  honest  son  of  Britain  !"  There  was 
still  another  left  to  me — a  popular  resort — 
where  flaming  bills,   staring  me  in  the  face 


24  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

every  time  I  passed,  had  promised  abundant 
"  novelty  suited  to  the  times."  I  have  you  at 
last,  methought ;  you  cannot  escape  me  now ; 
this  is  the  theatre  for  my  money.  What  was 
my  astonishment,  on  entering  and  possessing 
myself  of  one  of  the  small  bills  of  the  evening, 
to  discover  that  they  had  taken  one  of  -those 
new  books  I  had  come  away  from  home  to 
avoid,  and  made  a  play  of  it :  it  was  really  too 
much  partridge  by  a  long  shot.  There  was 
not  a  mouthful  of  air,  it  would  seem,  to  be  had 
for  love  or  money;  the  moment  I  opened  my 
mouth,  wherever  it  might  be,  at  home  or 
abroad,  for  health  or  pleasure,  these  busy  die- 
tarians  were  ready  with  their  everlasting  par- 
tridge, to  gorge  me  to  the  throat. 

Where  was  the  use  of  repining  ?  Time  heals 
all  wounds  of  the  youthful  spirit.  I  grew  to 
man's  estate.  Now  (said  I,  chuckling  to  my- 
self at  the  thought,)  I  will  set  this  matter  right. 
These  men  mean  well ;  they  would  give  just 
what  you  desire,  but,  poor  fellows,  they  havn't 


DISADVANTAGES.  25 

it  to  give.  That  (I  continued  to  myself,)  is 
easily  settled  ;  I  will  take  an  American  sub- 
ject, (allowing,  for  the  nonce,  that  there  is  such 
a  place  as  America:)  I  will  represent  a  man 
of  character,  a  hero,  a  patriot.  I  will  place 
him  in  circumstances  deeply  interesting  to  the 
country,  and  to  which  the  republican  feeling 
of  the  country  shall  respond  with  a  cheer. 
No  sooner  thought  than  done.  The  play  was 
written  :  an  American  historical  play.  With 
some  little  art  a  hearing  was  procured  from 
one  of  these  gentlemen — a  stage  manager,  as 
they  call  him.  I  stuffed  him,  that  all  the  pipes 
and  organs  of  his  system  might  be  in  tune, 
with  a  good  dinner  ;  which  he  did  not  disdain ; 
although  I  may  mention  that  the  greens  were 
raised  in  Westchester,  and  the  ducks  shot  on 
the  Sound.  I  announced  the  title  and  subject, 
and  proceeded  to  read  :  during  this  business 
he  seemed  to  be  greatly  moved.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  the  MS.  I  found  my  manager  in  a 
much  less  comfortable  humor  than  at  the  table.. 


26  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

In  a  word,  with  ill-concealed  disdain,  he  pro* 
nounced  the  play  a  failure,  and  wondered  that 
anybody  would  spend  his  time  on  subjects  so 
unworthy  the  English  Drama,  as  little  provin- 
cial squabbles  like  those  of  American  History, 
He  was  right :  American  History  is  not  a  suit- 
able subject  for  the  English  Drama.  With 
doubts  still  thickening  in  my  mind  whether 
this  was  America,  I  paid  the  reckoning,  thrust 
my  play  in  my  pocket,  and  hurried  home, 
anxious  to  consult  some  authentic  chronicle,  to 
make  sure  whether  there  had  been  such  an 
event  as  the  Revolutionary  War.  Such  an 
event  was  certainly  there  set  down,  at  consi- 
derable length,  and  one  George  Washington 
was  mentioned  as  having  taken  part  in  it.  The 
printed  book  I  read  from  was  called  the  His- 
tory of  the  United  States ;  but  from  all  I 
could  see,  hear,  and  learn,  daily,  about  me,  the 
United  States,  so  referred  to,  was  decidedly 
non  existent,  at  least  so  far  as  I  had  yet  pushed 
my  researches. 


DISADVANTAGES.  27 

But  I  did  not,  even  now,  altogether  despair. 
I  said  again,  Perhaps  I  am  limiting  myself  to 
too  humble  a  range  of  observation ;  why 
should  I  confine,  myself  to  the  city  of  New 
York,  Empire  City  though  it  be,  and  capital 
of  this  great  Western  Continent  ?  I  will  change 
the  scene ;  I  will  go  a  journey ;  I  will  strike 
for  Bunker  Hiil :  if  I  find  that,  all  is  safe.  Bos- 
ton is  not  at  the  end  of  the  earth,  nor  is  one  a 
life-time  in  getting  there.  I  found  Bunker 
Hill :  I  could  not  easily  miss  it,  for  there  was 
a  great  pile  of  stones,  a  couple  of  hundred  feet 
high,  which  a  blind  man  could  not  have  missed 
if  he  had  been  traveling  that  way.  You  are 
mistaken,  young  man,  (I  again  addressed  my- 
self, as  I  contemplated  the  granite  pyramid  :) 
there  has  been  a  Revolutionary  War:  the 
American  Colonies  fought  it,  and  after  a 
severe  struggle,  great  waste  of  blood,  treasure, 
and  counsel  of  great  men,  they  severed  them- 
selves from  the  Mother  Country,  and  they 
were  free !     The  little  grievances  which  have 


28  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

irked  you,  such  as  names  of  streets,  play-houses, 
and  such  trifles,  are  scarcely  worthy  of  your 
consideration  :  politically,  you  are  free.  You 
have  your  own  political  institutions,  with  which 
no  stranger  can  intermeddle  :  what  more  could 
you  ask  ? 

I  w7as  hugging  myself  in  this  comfortable 
conviction,  pacing  proudly  in  the  shadow  of 
Faneuil  Hall,  that  venerable  cradle  of  our 
boasted  Independence,  when  a  boy  placed  in 
my  hand  an  "  extra  sheet,"  from  which  I 
learned  that  a  steamer  had  just  arrived  from 
England,  and  had  that  moment  landed,  on  the 
very  wrharf  of  Boston  where  the  tea  was 
dumped,  an  emissary,  apparently  authorized 
by  the  Mother  Country,  for  he  was  a  member 
of  the  British  Parliament,  who  had  come  to 
resume  in  due  form,  the  old  political  authority 
of  the  Mother  Country,  and  to  direct  us,  ex 
cathedra,  in  the  regulation  of  those  very  politi- 
cal concerns  of  which  we  fancied  we  had  ac- 
quired the  exclusive  control  by  fighting  through 


DISADVANTAGES.  29 

that  old  Revolutionary  War.  You  see,  my 
dear  friends,  it  was  all  a  mistake :  the  whole 
thing  is  a  cunningly  devised  fable  ;  there  wTas 
no  such  man  as  George  Washington,  (face- 
tiously represented  as  the  father  of  his  coun- 
try ;)  and  there  is  no  such  country  us  America. 
The  sooner  we  reconcile  ourselves  to  the  facts, 
the  more  comfortable  we  shall  all  be.  Chris- 
topher Columbus,  in  the  order  of  Providence, 
was  a  grand  mistake — 


Even  out  of  this  new  dilemma,  desperate  as 
it  seems,  there  is  a  little  magic  fellow  of  a  fan- 
tastic temper  who  can  perhaps  help  us.  Fancy 
is  the  young  gentleman's  name.  We  will  in- 
vite him  to  go  along  with  us  through  New 
York  City,  and  he  may  be  able  here  and  there,, 
(for  he  has  the  power,)  to  beguile  us  into  the 
belief  that  there  is  something  worth  looking 
at    in    this   Domestic    Panorama.      In   truth 


30  PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

it  is  that  lively  person  that  has  had,  I  believe, 
most  to  do  in  getting  up  the  speculation  ;  and 
for  the  time  being  we  must  all  become,  for  pro- 
fit's sake,  dealers  in  fancy  stock.  "Which  shall 
be  the  first  division  of  our  Picture  ? 

BROADWAY. 

This  is  Broadway,  ladies  and  gentlemen.  A 
wonderful  highway,  is  it  not  ?  Old  and  know- 
ing, and  what  stories  it  could  tell  of  the  sights 
and  the  people  it  has  seen  and  known  ? 

If  we  were  out  of  temper  we  could  rail  at 
you,  Broadway,  by  the  hour.  What  scamp  of 
high  or  low  degree ! — what  hard-hearted 
woman  of  fashion — what  knavish  politician — 
what  pompous  man  of  wealth — small  official — 
blackleg — what  painted  bawd,  or  smooth-faced 
hypocrite — what  idealess  dandy  or  sickly  girl 
of  sentiment — in  a  word  what  form  of  folly 
or  crime  have  you  not  lent  yourself  to — made 
much  of?  Giving  the  benefit  of  your  sunshine 
and  promenade-side  to  every  one  of  them  in 


BROADWAY.  31 

their  newest  gloss.     Oh,  the  villains  thou  hast 
entertained,  Broadway  !  The  men  of  pretence  ! 
newly  arrived  Viscounts  !  returned  exquisites  ! 
celebrities,  notorieties,  infamies  of  every  color 
and  degree  !     And  yet,  turning  to  the  other 
side  of  the  ledger,  there  is  a  large  credit  for 
thee,  for  thou  hast  shown  us  the  great-bearded 
Turk,  John  Chinaman,   the  Choctaw   in   his 
blanket,  prophets,  long-haired  reformers,  and 
whatever  else  of  strange  and  wonderful  in  char- 
acter, the  world  could  furnish.     Thou  hast  the 
first  of  everything — of  a  General  returned  from 
victory — of  a  night  procession  with  its  flaming 
torches — the   long    funerals — it   is    you   that 
open  wide  your  arms  and  give  a  welcome  to 
great  men  from  every  quarter  of  the  land.    No 
matter  what  the  complexion  of  their  politics  ; 
it's   all  the  same  to  you      You  look  with   an 
equal  pride,  an  equal  smile  of  satisfaction  upon 
Webster,   and  Jackson,  on   Scott  and   Clay. 
Has  any  man  ever  undertaken  to  estimate  the 
notabilities,  who  have  been  irretrievably  swal- 


32  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

lowed  up  in  its  ever  flowing  wave  !  Of  a  few 
of  the  humbler  we  can  recollect  within  the  few 
past  years,  that  dietetic  phenomenon,  the  gin- 
ger-bread man,  who,  in  spite  of  the  energetic 
buttoning  of  his  coat  to  the  throat,  and  the 
enormous  strides  he  was  used  to  take,  was 
overtaken  and  submerged.  And  Posthlewaite 
Page,  the  mighty  calculator  of  the  functions 
of  A  in  the  tap  of  a  beer-barrel,  as  affecting 
the  sidereal  system,  where  is  he  ?  And  Nazro, 
that  modest  inculcator  of  Hebrew  at  100,000 
doubloons  per  lesson?  The  long-bearded  man 
with  the  inexhaustible  long  nine  ?  And  the 
white-wash  man  ?  Alas  !  these  have  all  per- 
ished from  the  sight ! 

Strange  to  say,  although  this  mighty  medium 
for  the  exhibition  of  all  that  is  singular  and 
eccentric,  Broadway  cannot  claim  a  single  pe- 
culiarity for  itself.  There  is  not  a  single  fea- 
ture by  which  you  can  define  it — no  one  qual- 
ity by  which  it  is  distinguishable  from  the  com- 
monest street.     You  can  say  of  it,  it  is  a  great 


BROADWAY. 


33 


sheet  of  glass,  through  which  the  whole  world 
is  visible  as  in  a  transparency.  In  fact,  rest 
you  content  in  New  York,  and  making  a  pil- 
grimage from  time  to  time  to  this  thoroughfare, 
I  will  engage,  you  shall  see  in  due  succession, 
whatever  your  heart  is  set  on.  The  world  will 
come  to  you,  from  every  part,  in  Broadway. 
You  have  heard,  perhaps,  of  an  elephant  in 
Siam  of  exceeding  size,  wonderful  docility,  the 
temper  of  an  angel — you  would  give  a  finger 
to  have  a  sight  of  him  :  one  day  a  trumpet  is 
blown,  you  prick  up  your  ears  and  making  for 
Broadway  behold  "  Siam,"  just  arrived,  and 
marching  in  state  at  the  head  of  a  caravan. 

The  celebrated  Musical  College  of  La  Scala, 
Milan,  is  in  high  enthusiasm  with  the  singing 
of  Signorina  Luni.  Shall  we  ever  hear  her  ? 
will  her  countrymen  part  with  her  ?  You  fear, 
never.  A  turn  of  the  wheel,  and  the  Signorina 
is  seen  through  a  coach-window,  taking  her  first 
drive  in  America,  in  Broadway.  So  of  dancers, 
jugglers,  lords,  marchionesses,  panoramas,  cos- 


34  FEN- AND  INK     TANORAMA. 

moramas,  dancing  birds.  In  questions  of 
apparel,  Broadway  has  an  equal  variety  and 
preference  ;  if  there's  a  peculiar  hat  born  and 
and  worn  in  Bond-street,  London ;  a  new  re- 
volutionary blouse  in  Paris ;  an  extraordinary 
pair  of  trousers  in  Berlin  ;  or  a  special  style  of 
beard  among  the  Persians ;  or  Russian  whis- 
kers, or  Itoman  moustache — in  its  season,  and 
when  each  has  attained  its  ripeness — look  for 
it  in  Broadway,  and  you  shall  find  it.  The 
whole  world,  once  in  the  course  of  its  life, 
flocks  to  Broadway  !  And  yet  nothing  sticks. 
There  is  not  in  all  Broadway  a  memorable 
building — (shall  we  except  Trinity  Church  and 
Mr.  Stewart's  Dry  Goods  Store  ?) — not  a  mon- 
ument— not  a  sight  worth  the  seeing  !  It  s 
chief  characteristic  is  that  all  things  shall  be 
brought  to  a  certain  well-bred  and  immovable 
level.  Mark  the  passengers  :  not  as  the  people 
in  other  democratic  precincts,  scrambling 
freely  about,  dashing  to  right  and  left,  taking 
across  the  way  at  an  angle — but  all  moving  in 


BROADWAY.  35 

a  right  line,  to  the  right  up,  to  the  right 
down. 

All  dressed  in  about  the  same  decent  habili- 
ments, all  carrying  heads  up,  and  observing  the 
decorum  of  the  street  with  due  gravity  and 
steadiness.  Broadway  never,  or  rarely,  has  its 
gentlemanly  propriety  disturbed  by  the  rush 
of  a  fire-engine,  or  a  drove  of  cattle,  or  the 
tramp  of  a  target  excursion. 

For  real  life,  and  the  display  of  numbers, 
Broadway  is  in  full  force  through  Sunday,  and 
with  an  increased  power  on  Sunday  evening. 
It  is  then  that  the  nice  dressing  of  New-York- 
ers is  to  be  seen  in  the  highest  perfection — a 
solid  mass  from  Grace  Church  to  the  Battery 
— a  perfect  Mississippi,  with  a  double  current 
up  and  down,  of  glossy  broadcloth  and  unblem- 
ished De  Laines.  An  army  on  the  march  to 
battle  could  not  move  with  stricter  precision — 
a  procession  of  monks  and  nuns  bound  convent- 
ward,  with  more  sacred  gravity.  New  York 
in  Broadway,  on  that  day,  makes   a  mighty 


36  PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

sacrifice  to  solemnity,  requiting  itself  a  little  in 
the  evening  by  stepping  aside  into  the  shops 
and  gardens,  and  revelling  in  innumerable  ice- 
creams. 

It  is  above  all  other  streets,  localities,  and 
positions,  the  test  of  respectability.  If  you  can 
touch  your  hat  to  fifty  people  in  Broadway, 
your  character  is  "  o.  k.," — you  are  an  estab- 
lished man.  But  beware  of  "  cuts."  They  are 
dealt  about  in  that  thoroughfare  with  an  awful 
profusion.  If  you  are  in  doubt  about  yourself, 
if  you  are  under  a  cloud,  if  your  hat  is  rusty, 
or  your  coat  u  going,"  if  you  have  been  para- 
graphed as  having  failed,  or  as  involved  in  any 
little  unfortunate  matter,  shun  Broadway  as 
you  would  a  fire.  You  will  be  shot  down  on 
your  first  appearance  like  an  outlaw.  You  will 
not  have  a  minute's  mercy  allowed  you.  You 
will  not  pass  ten  steps  before  some  kind  gentle- 
man, suddenly  oblivious  of  your  countenance, 
will  bring  home  to  you  painfully  a  sense  of 


BROADWAY.  37 

your  miserable  condition.     Till  Fortune  be- 
friend you,  sneak  through  the  side  streets. 

There  are  hundreds  and  thousands  in  New 
York  who  cannot  live  out  of  Broadway  :  who 
must  breathe  its  air  at  least  once  in  the  day,  or 
they  gasp  and  perish.  They  are  creatures  of 
conventionality,  whose  chief  enjoyment  in  this 
world,  is  to  have  certain  hats  touched  to  them 
every  day  of  their  life  in  Broadway.  This  is 
their  morning's  anticipation,  their  evening's 
reminiscence;  and  when,  at  length,  they  find 
this  world  and  its  affairs  closing  upon  them, 
they  call  a  confidential  friend  to  their  bedside 
and  whisper  in  his  ear,  as  they  are  goiiig,  "  Let 
the  funeral  go  through  Broadway !" 


This  is  the  American  Museum,  la-dies  and 
gentlemen,  spitted  at  the  fork  of  the  City  Park. 
Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  gentleman  named  Bar- 
num  ?  Perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  a  lit- 
tle more  ?  Well,  I  shall  therefore  treat  you 
forthwith  to 


38  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 


AN  AUTHENTIC  ACCOUNT  OF  P.  T.  BARNUM,  ESQ. 

It  is  a  favorite  notion  of  ours,  that  artists, 
soldiers,  and  poets — the  learned  professions 
and  the  legislatures — do  not  exclusively  pos- 
sess all  the  best  talent  of  the  world.  Sustained 
by  observation  of  men  in  the  various  walks  of 
life,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  no  small 
share  of  what  is  called  genius  is  engaged  in 
the  every-day  business  of  buying  and  selling. 
Without  intending  to  stimulate  their  vanity 
and  prompt  them  to  cherish  an  undue  idea  of 
their  own  importance,  we  point  to  the  men 
most  conspicuous  before  the  world  for  business 
enterprise  —  whatever  its  sphere — and  ask 
wmether  these  individuals  are  not  strongly 
marked  in  the  career  which  they  have  respect- 
ively shaped  out  for  themselves,  as  Daniel 
"Webster,  Michael  Angelo,  or  my  Lord  Byron  ? 
To  test  the  question  fairly,  we  would  take  them 
in  pursuits  which  are  not  at  all  heroic  in  their 


PHINEAS    T.    BARNUM,    ESQ.  39 

nature,  and  where  nothing  but  a  native  energy 
and  originality  in  scheming,  could  have  secured 
success  and  a  large  return.  Mr.  Barnum,  for 
instance,  of  the  Museum,  began  with  a  few 
shells,  and  two  or  three  stuffed  animals  ;  he  is 
now  known  and  recognized  all  over  the  world. 
Another,  from  the  humble  starting  point  of  a 
mere  confectionery,  like  Mr.  H.  Wild,  sets  out 
on  a  brilliant  course  of  achievement  in  panorama, . 
poetical  handbill,  and  sugared  statuary,  (all  of 
which  centres  round  his  business,)  of  which 
that  modest  beginning  seems  scarcely  capable. 
Has  any  one  read  Mr.  Bartol,  the  shade  paint- 
er's admirable  treatise  on  landscape  and  the 
beautiful,  as  applied  to  the  proper  decoration 
of  window  screens  ?  Take  these  alone,  for  the 
present,  and  they  are  but  leaders  among  many 
like  them  ;  and  we  confidently  ask,  what  but  an 
originality  of  character  as  unquestionable  as 
that  shown  by  men  of  genius,  recognized  by 
the  world,  could  have  wrought  so  much  from 
so  little  ?     It  is  true  they  have  been  wise — in 


40  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

this,  wiser  than  the  Grecian  Hero — in  securing 
the  Press  for  their  historian.  Here  they  con- 
stantly announce  their  mighty  schemes,  record 
their  victories,  and  secure  the  transmission  to 
the  latest  posterity,  of  the  wonders  they  are 
doing,  and  meaning  to  do.  Change  their  dress 
— put  cocked  hats  on  their  heads — an  army 
behind,  or  an  audience  before  them,  and  you 
would  have  in  Barnum,  Wild,  and  Bartol,  a 
Napoleon,  a  Byron,  and  a  Demosthenes.  It  is 
dress  and  circumstance  only,  that  make  the 
difference  between  these,  our  worthy  fellow- 
citizens,  and  the  most  renowned  men  of  past 


Every  community,  in  the  natural  course  of 
events,  demands  an  individual  who  shall  take 
upon  himself  all  sorts  of  extraordinary  achieve- 
ments in  the  way  of  public  amusements  :  who 
will  advertise  largely  in  all  the  newspapers ; 
set  great  banners  flying  from  the  house-top ; 
display  enormous  pictures  of  whales  and  giants; 
who  will   catch   intolerable   anacondas ;    and 


PHTNEAS  T.  BARNUM,  ESQ.  41 

nurse  unwonted  fat  boys  up  to  the  highest  mark 
of  heft  and  rotundity;  who  will  crowd  the 
streets,  and  distract  the  walkers  therein,  with 
transparencies  and  musical  vans :  in  a  word, 
every  great  community  needs  a  Barnum  :  and 
New  York  is  fortunate  in  having  him.  And 
we  hold  it  as  utterly  impossible  for  Barnum  to 
have  become  Barnum  without  a  genius  for  it, 
as  for  Captain  Post  to  bottle  Horse-Ea  dish  with- 
out corks.  There  was  a  touch  of  the  melo- 
dramatic— a  fine  effect — connected  with  this 
eminent  gentleman's  origin;  for  he  was  born  at 
Bethel  Village,  in  Connecticut,  which  w7as  burnt 
by  the  British  in  the  War  of  the  Eevolution. 
Young  Barnum,  however,  had  no  hand  in  the 
fire.  There  is  a  big  Elm  tree,  by  the  old  Earm 
House,  of  an  exceeding  bright  green ;  and 
Barnum,  in  his  later  prosperity,  having  re-pur- 
chased it,  it  is  now  the  residence  of  Mrs. 
Barnum,  the  elder,  the  mother  of  E.  T.  The 
proprietor  of  the  American  Museum,  was  born, 
as  might  have  been  expected,  next  door  to  the 


42  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA 

Fourth  of  July  :  to  wit,  on  the  5th  of  that 
month,  in  the  year  1810. 

"When  about  fourteen  years  of  age,  being  at 
the  time  in  receipt  of  a  couple  of  dollars  a 
month  as  clerk  in  a  store,  and  holding  his  fath- 
er's due  bill  for  some  eleven  dollars,  the  estate 
proving  insolvent,  young  Barnum  was  com- 
pelled by  the  executors  to  pay  out  of  his  later 
earnings  for  the  very  shoes  he  wore  to  his  fath- 
er's funeral.  An  extraordinary  example  of  the 
stony-heartedness  of  executors,  and  the  "No- 
you-don't-put-me-down"  power  of  young 
genius. 

We  next  find  Barnum,  fall  fourteen  years 
of  age,  clerk  in  the  store  of  a  fellow-townsman 
at  Brooklyn  ;  when,  after  snuffing  the  roguery 
of  the  neighboring  metropolis  of  New- York  for 
a  couple  of  years,  he  returned  to  Danbury, 
where,  with  a  fast  developing  faculty  for  some- 
thing on  a  grander  scale,  something  pictorial, 
like  stage-scenery,  he  at  once  opened  a  Confec- 
tionery  and  Fruit  Shop — passing   from  that 


PHINEAS  T.  BARNUM,  ESQ.  43 

rapidly  to  a  Dry  Goods  Shop,  with  calicoes  of 
tremendous  patterns  ;  (with  a  little  parenthesis 
here,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  in  groceries  :) 
and  when  all  the  Danbury  world  is  wondering 
what  Barnum  will  do  next,  he  flies  in  a  light 
wagon  to  New- York,  and  gets  married  ;  sorely 
against  the  consent  of  his  excellent  mother,  for 
Phineas  is  yet  without  the  dollars  necessary 
for  the  proper  maintenance  of  a  household. 

It  is  but  a  little  while  that  private  life  can 
hold  such  a  spirit ;  it  is  always  bursting  to  get 
out — and  when  in  '30  and  '31a  great  religious 
excitement  came  into  Bethel,  Barnum  was 
there,  and  rose  up,  like  one  man,  against  what 
he  conceived  to  be  its  unheard-of  enormities. 
Rushing  to  the  press,  with  characteristic  im- 
petuosity, he  demanded  to  be  allowed  to  enter 
his  protest  in  the  county  paper — in  a  case 
where  a  man  had  brained  his  children,  (upon  a 
supposed  commission  from  Heaven,)  and  his 
wife  jumped  out  of  a  window,  because  she  was 
not  willing  to  regard  herself  as  included  in  the 


44  PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

said  commission.  The  local  Journalist  set 
down  his  foot,  and  flatly  refused  :  Barnum 
lifted  up  his — he  did  not  kick  the  cowardly 
local  Journalist — but  walked  away,  and  made 
immediate  preparations  to  publish  an  opposi- 
tion paper.  With  a  thundering  motto  from 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  new  "  Herald  of  Free- 
dom" loomed  upon  the  horizon,  in  a  short  fort- 
night from  the  insolent  and  diabolical  refusal 
of  the  local  Journalist  to  right  Barnum.  The 
Herald  was  conducted  by  young  Phineas  three 
years,  in  the  course  of  which  period  he  fell  into 
a  furious  libel  quarrel  with  the  venerable  Judge 
Dagget,  which  occasioned  the  immurement  of 
the  fearless  champion  of  popular  rights  in  a 
gloomy  dungeon.  He  lingered  there  the  allot- 
ted time,  when  he  was  called  for  at  the  prison- 
door  by  some  15,000  people,  or  so — borne  to 
the  very  Court  House  where  he  had  been  (per- 
haps) ignominiously  sentenced,  where  he  de- 
livered, (it  is  said)  one  of  the  most  masterly 


PHINEAS    T.    BAPwNUM:,    ESQ.  45 

vindications   of  the   Freedom   of  the   Press, 
which  has  ever  been  heard  in  Bethel. 

Immediately  after  this  triumphant  vindica- 
tion of  the  Eights  of  the  People,  Barnum  (still 
young,  and  in  the  very  prime  of  his  powers,) 
engaged  in  the  sale  of  Lottery  Tickets,  in  which 
he  was  known  to  clear  $1000  a  day,  by  sub- 
agencies  alone.  He  made  an  immense  hit  by 
the  sale  of  one  of  the  great  Prizes  ;  which,  in 
the  joyful  enthusiasm  of  the  moment,  prompted 
him  to  entertain  his  fellow-citizens  at  a  grand 
public  dinner,  where  he  offered  them  a  splendid 
opportunity  to  realize  fortunes,  by  disposing 
of  five  hundred  dollars  worth  of  tickets  in  ac- 
commodating lots.  All  this  time,  however,  he 
informs  us,  he  hankered  after  caravans,  wild 
beast  shows,  and  public  exhibitions  generally. 
He  was  fearfully  stirred  up  whenever  he  fell  in 
with  one  of  the  large-sized  circus  handbills,  and 
could  not  sleep  for  several  nights.  Much  as 
he  had  accomplished — hard  as  he  had  fought 
in  the  dry-goods  shop — in  the  vindication  of 


46  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

the  freedom  of  the  press,  and  in  the  sale  of  lot- 
tery tickets,  (and  all  this  before  he  had  at- 
tained his  30th  year  !)  Mr.  Barnum  had  not 
yet  had  an  opportunity  to  appear  before  the 
world  in  his  real  character  ;  the  most  success- 
ful contriver  and  caterer  of  public  amusements 
that  ever  has  lived  or  ever  will  live  in  all  the 
rolling  ages  of  time.  His  head  was  teeming — 
this  was  in  1836 — with  all  sorts  of  brilliant  con- 
ceptions and  daring  designs,  when  one  day, 
traveling  along  the  borders  of  Western  Ken- 
tucky,  somewhere  back  of  Louisville,  on  the 
look-out  for  wonders,  he  came  upon  a  miserable 
little  old  hovel,  with  a  miserable  little  old 
woman  in  it,  all  by  herself.  This  little  old 
woman  was  black,  and  with  a  decision  stri- 
kingly characteristic  of  the  man,  Mr.  Barnum 
promptly  made  up  his  mind  to  two  points,  that 
she  was  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  old, 
and  had  been  the  nurse  of  Washington.  Being 
clear  on  these  two  points  himself,  his  next  step 
was  to  satisfy  the  public.     Having  taken  his 


ESQ.  47 

determination  to  do  so  at  all  hazards,  he  pur- 
chased the  little  old  black  woman  from  a  gentle- 
man who  appeared  to  be  her  owner  ;  her  name 
was  Joyce  Heath,  and  this  was  the  name 
which  Mr.  Barnum  had  inserted  in  the  bill  of 
sale  he  drew  upon  parchment,  (the  original 
must  have  been  lost  or  mislaid,)  to  the  father 
of  George  Washington.  To  take  away  the 
suspicion  of  any  fraud  or  deception  on  his 
part,  Mr.  Barnum  steeped  the  parchment  in 
tobacco  juice,  and  smoked  it  for  some  time  over 
a  slow  fire,  which  gave  it  the  appearance  of  an 
ancient  deed.  To  heighten  the  effect,  Mr. 
Barnum  employed  a  small  boy,  by  the  day,  to 
open  and  fold  the  parchment,  so  as  to  convey 
the  idea  of  its  having  been  frequently  handled 
in  the  course  of  the  century  during  which  it 
had  been  in  existence.  The  hearty  welcome 
with  which  the  aged  and  venerable  nurse  of 
Washington  was  received,  wherever  she  ap- 
peared, cannot  be  forgotten.  Mr.  Barnum 
was  regarded  as  a  great  public  benefactor,  and 


48  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

took  in  large  sums  of  money  at  the  doors  of 
all  the  public  exhibitions  where  the  venerable 
Joyce  appeared.  The  throngs  of  people  who 
everywhere  attended  the  interesting  conversa- 
tions  she  held  on  religion  with  learned  divines, 
and  her  very  many  satisfactory  interviews  with 
men  of  great  scientific  insight,  satisfied  her  that 
she  was  somewhere  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  old.  Mr.  Barnum  was  satisfied, 
(every  deduction  being  fairly  made)  that  she 
could  not  have  been  at  that  time  less  than 
sixty ;  a  most  careful  post-mortem  examination 
by  an  eminent  surgeon,  in  the  presence  of  some 
fourteen  hundred  anxious  witnesses,  singularly 
enough  sustained  this  view  of  the  age  of  Mrs. 
Heath.  It  would  give  us  vast  delight  to  dwell 
upon  the  after  course  of  Mr.  Barnum,  from 
this  brilliant  starting  point ;  his  purchase  of 
steamboats,  of  the  grand  contest  presented  and 
matured  by  him,  between  the  celebrated  Signor 
Vivalla,  and  Boberts,  the  native  plate-spinner  ; 
his  connection   with  a  circus  company,  with 


PHINEAS    T.    BARNUM,    ESQ.  49 

Diamond,  the  flower  of  negro  dancers,  (who 
bloomed  and  blossomed  under  the  auspices  of 
Barnum,)  of  his  agency  for  the  United  States 
for  Sears'  Pictorial  Bible,  the  great  sign  of 
which,  lately  to  be  seen  at  the  corner  of  Beek- 
man  and  Nassau  streets,  in  this  city,  is  of  Bar- 
num's  own  devising ;  of  his  establishment  of 
the  American  Museum  on  its  present  popular 
foundation  ;  of  the  wonderful,  mysterious,  and 
imposing  triumphs  of  Barnum  with  Tom 
Thumb  ;  his  grand  climax  in  the  late  engage- 
ment of  Jenny  Lind  ;  his  enlargement  of  the 
Museum  to  an  entertainment  of  the  first  class, 
which  is  open  at  this  time — these  are  matters 
blazoned  every  day  in  the  newspapers,  where 
this  man  of  restless  activity  and  untiring  in- 
vention, keeps  the  public  on  the  alert,  allowing 
them  not  a  moment's  peace,  but  opening  their 
eyes  every  morning  to  something  new,  some- 
thing more  wonderful.  There  is  but  one 
Barnum,  and  the  world  (we  are  satisfied,)  will 
never  live  to  see  another. 


50  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

Spare  a  moment  to  visit  the  American  Mu- 
seum.    What  have  we  here  ? 

THE  HAPPY  FAMILY. 

An  ingenious  old  fellow,  by  the  name  of 
iEsop,  has  happily  embodied  a  History  of 
Human  Nature  and  its  chief  motives  and  pas- 
sions, in  a  series  of  fancy-scenes  where  birds 
and  beasts  are  the  principal  characters.  No- 
body ever  pretended  that  YEsop  was  an  actual 
witness  to  these  conversations,  or  that  they 
ever  actually  occurred.  The  modern  succes- 
sor of  the  old  fable-maker,  who  is  to  be  found 
at  the  American  Museum  at  all  hours,  day  and 
evening,  "  without  extra  charge,"  has  pushed 
the  scheme  a  step  further,  and  brings  directly 
before  us  in  a  large  wire  cage,  the  entire  com- 
pany of  performers.  AVe  have  observed  the 
young  man  closely,  and  have  attentively  sur- 
veyed his  collection,  and  if  we  are  not  grossly 
mistaken,  Barnum's  iEsop  is  quite  as  sly  and 
deep  as  his  ancient  predecessor.     He  is  evi- 


THE    HAPPY    FAMILY.  51 

dently  a  man  of  satirical  disposition,  and  in 
visiting  the  country  at  this  time  had  a  motive 
which  any  man  may  discern  with  half  an  eye  in 
his  head.  He  has  a  little  moral  to  enforce 
(aside  from  wages,)  and  he  has  skilfully  chosen 
his  time.  If  we  have  read  the  graphic  an- 
nouncement of  the  small  bills  aright,  and  if  our 
eyes — which  are  generally  true  to  us  on  such 
occasions — have  not  egregiously  deceived  us, 
in  the  inspection  which  we  made  on  a  late 
afternoon,  you  all,  free  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  are  interested  in  the  exhibition  of  the 
hundred  trained  animals  and  birds  of  the 
most  diverse  characters ;  yet  all  to  be 
found,  in  singular  association,  in  the  same 
inclosure. 

When  we  mention  that  in  this  country  a 
Presidential  Election  is  always  approaching, 
and  call  your  recollection  to  the  strange  inter- 
mingling of  parties,  the  odd  combinations  of  per- 
sons, and  the  pie-bald  and  party-colored  appear- 
ances which  present  themselves  in  every  direc- 


52  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

tion,  suddenly  associating  "  on  terms  of  lasting 
friendship  and  amity" — you  will  understand  at 
once  that  this  Happy  Family  of  birds  and 
beasts  at  the  Museum  is  but  a  type  of  the 
political  condition  of  the  country. 

Here  we  have  them  all  in  a  cage,  Whigs, 
Democrats,  Free  Soilers,  Webster  men,  Hards, 
Softs,  Scott  men,  Lot  men,  Free  and  Inde- 
pendent, Tide-Waiters,  Natives,  Liberty  men, 
Higher  Law  and  Lower  Law,  Eegulars  and 
Irregulars — each  one  by  his  representative.  In 
this  singular  assemblage,  says  our  modern 
iEsop — we  follow  his  announcement  literally — 
are  to  be  found  bear,  racoon,  opossum,  mon- 
keys, squirrels,  cats,  rats,  dogs,  rabbits,  guinea 
pigs,  hawks,  owls,  parrots,  pigeons,  partridges, 
blackbirds,  (genuine  Free-soilers,  no  doubt,) 
and  others  in  great  variety. 

And  for  a  graphic  picture  from  the  hand  of 
a  master,  of  the  delightful  aspect  of  a  nomina- 
ting convention,  just  on  the  eve  of  passing 
their    "  unanimous    resolve." This    Happy 


THE    HAPPY    FAMILY.  53 

Family,  continues  the  small  bill,  although  op- 
posed to  each  other — born  enemies — neverthe- 
less live  together  as  happy  as  a  bride  and 
bridegroom  during  the  honey-moon.  The  weak 
are  without  a  fear,  and  the  strong  without  a 
disposition  to  injure.  Several  monkeys  and 
other  animals  are  constantly  performing  a 
variety  of  strange  and  laughable  manoeuvres, 
and  you  see  the  game  dog  caressing  squirrels; 
rats  and  cats  in  friendly  intercourse  ;  hawks 
doing  the  amiable  to  young  pigeons  ;  and  owls 
brooding  over  mice  as  lovingly  as  if  they  were 
juvenile  owlets,  fresh  from  the  shell.  It  is  (in 
conclusion,)  the  most  extraordinary  instance  of 
the  annihilation  of  antipathies  for  the  common 
good,  and  must  be  witnessed  to  be  appreciated. 


"While  the  Museum  is  as  lively  as  it  can  be 
with  its  wonders,  let  us  step  forth  and  take 
note  of  one  or  two  little  histories  which  w7e  en- 
counter by  the  way-side. 


54  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

It  does  not  require  a  long  journey  in  this 
mighty  metropolis  of  ours — with  its  thousand 
currents  dashing  hither  and  thither — to  come 
upon  some  little  rill  or  offsetting  stream  of 
life,  which  shall  distinguish  itself  from  the  rest, 
and  engage  the  attention.  There  are  little  his- 
tories by  the  way-side,  quite  as  well  worth 
reading  as  the  great  volumes  of  national  poli 
tics  and  commerce. 

Strolling  along  at  leisure  in  the  welcome 
sunshine,  we  begin  by  espying,  seated  in  the 
sun,  upon  a  druggist's  shop-step,  a  little  fellow, 
sound  asleep,  with  his  head  resting  on  the 
handle  of  a  basket.  His  face  is  as  calm  as 
the  late  Nicholas  Biddle's,  when  it  approached 
most  nearly  the  blandness  of  a  "  summer  morn- 
ing.''  It  is  in  the  heart  of  Broadway,  and  the 
omnibusses  rattle  by  unheeded:  the  church 
bells  ring,  elegant  women,  and  quick-moving 
men  glide  by — and  even  high  above  all,  (an- 
other strange  sight  for  Broadway,  too,)  an  old 
woman  raises  her  voice,  "  Yher's  your  good 


WAY-SIDE    HISTOraES.  55 

'East !"  He  sleeps  unmoved,  and  seems  by 
his  smiling  looks  to  have  pleasant  dreams.  God 
bless  the  child,  whatever  his  future  fortunes 
may  be ! 

And  here  we  have,  resting  on  the  curb  of 
St.  Paul's  church-yard,  opposite  the  gay  Mu- 
seum, a  pale  woman  in  black,  holding  her  head 
upon  her  hands  and  sitting  mournfully  and 
closely  veiled.  Ah  !  what  a  history  of  sorrow 
and  heart  grief  is  there  !  Not  in  one  chapter, 
hastily  written,  soon  begun,  and  soon  ended — 
but  a  long,  wearisome  story — told  by  day,  told 
by  night,  on  Sabbath  and  week-day,  in  fast  and 
feast — alone,  and  in  the  crowd — at  home,  and 
far  away.  The  spectre,  who  is  the  historian 
of  her  troubles,  follows  her  still,  keeps  at  her 
back,  is  in  her  eye,  in  her  mind — it  is  the  image 
of  her  Lost  Virtue,  a  fearful  apparition,  which 
no  earthly  power  can  lay,  and  which  will  only 
fade  from  her  view  (and  then,  forever,  let  us 
hope,)  with  the  closing  light  of  the  world ! 


56  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

Up  the  street  we  go  ! 

Fancy  suggests  to  us  just  here,  to  step  inW 
that  high -shouldered  building  on  the  corner  of 
Leonard-street,  in  remembrance  of  an  odd 
little  friend  of  ours,  a  notable  New-York  char- 
acter, recently  deceased.  Gently  cross  the 
threshold,  and  lay  aside  the  hat,  in  memory 
of 

LITTLE  TRAPPAN. 

Tenderly  let  us  deal  with  the  memory  of  the 
dead — though  they  may  have  been  the  hum- 
blest of  the  living  !  Let  us  never  forget  that 
though  they  are  parted  from  us,  with  a  recollec- 
tion of  many  frailties  clinging  about  their  mortal 
career,  they  have  passed  into  a  purer  and  bet- 
ter light,  where  these  very  frailties  may  prove 
to  have  been  virtues  in  disguise — a  grotesque 
tongue  to  be  translated  into  the  clear  speech 
of  angels  when  our  ears  come  to  be  purged  of 
the  jargon- sounds  of  worldly  trade  and  seltish 
fashion.  While  we  would  not  draw  from  house- 
hold concealments  into  the  glare  of  general 


LITTLE    TRAPPAN.  57 

notice  any  being  whose  life  was  strictly  private, 
we  may,  with  unblamed  pen,  linger  for  a  mo- 
ment, in  a  hasty  but  not  irrespective  sketch, 
over  the  departure  of  one  whose  peculiarities 
— from  the  open  station  he  held  for  many 
years — were  so  widely  known,  that  no  publi- 
city can  affront  his  memory.  Thousands  will 
be  pleased  sorrowfully  to  dwell  with  a  quaint 
regret  over  his  little  traits  and  turns  of  char- 
acter, set  forth  in  their  true  light  by  one  who 
wished  him  well  while  living,  and  who  would 
entomb  him  gently  now  that  he  is  gone. 

Whoever  has  had  occasion,  any  time,  for  the 
last  ten  years,  to  consult  a  file  of  newspapers 
at  the  rooms  of  the  New  York  Society  Library, 
must  remember  a  singular  little  figure  which 
presented  itself,  skipping  about  those  precincts 
with  a  jerky  and  angular  motion.  He  must 
recollect  in  the  first  half-minute  after  entering, 
when  newly  introduced,  having  been  rapidly 
approached  by  a  man  of  slender  build,  in  a 
frock  coat,  low  shoes,  a  large  female  head  in  a 


58  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

cameo  in  his  bosom,  an  eye-glass  dangling  to 
and  fro  ;  and  presently  thrusting  into  his  very 
face  a  wrinkled  countenance,  twitchy  and  pe- 
culiarly distorted,  in  (we  think  it  was)  the  left 
eye.  This  was  little  Trappan  himself,  the 
superintendent  of  the  rooms,  and  arch-custodian 
of  the  filed  newspapers :  who  no  doubt  asked 
you  sharply  on  your  first  appearance,  rising  on 
one  leg,  as  he  spoke  : 

"  Well,  sir,  what  do  you  wTant  ?" 
This  question  was  always  put  to  a  debutant 
with  a  sternness  of  demeanor  and  severity  of 
tone,  absolutely  appalling.  But  wait  a  little 
and  you  will  see  the  really  kind  old  gentleman 
softening  down,  and  meek  as  a  lamb,  leading 
you  about  to  crop  of  the  sweetest  bunches  his 
garden  of  preserves  could  furnish.  It  was  his 
way  only :  and,  while  surprised  into  admira- 
tion of  his  newT  suavity,  you  were  lingering 
over  an  open  paper  which  he  had  spread  before 
you  with  alacrit}',  you  were  startled  into  a 
fresh  and  greater  wonder,  at  the  uprising  of  a 


LITTLE    TRAPPAN.  59 

voice  in  a  distant  quarter,  shouting,  roaring 
almost  in  a  furious  key,  and  demanding  with 
clamorous  passion — 

"  "Why  the  devil  gentlemen  couldn't  conduct 
themselves  as  gentlemen,  and  keep  their  legs 
off  the  tables  !" 

Looking  hastily  about,  you  discover  the  little 
old  man,  planted  square  in  the  middle  of  the 
floor,  firing  hot  shot  and  rapid  speech,  in  broad- 
sides, upon  a  doubled-up  man,  half  on  a  chair, 
and  half  on  the  reading-table — with  a  perfect 
chorus  of  eyes  rolling  about  the  room  from  the 
assembled  readers,  centering  upon  the  little 
figure  in  its  spasm.  Silence  again  for  three 
minutes,  and  all  the  gentlemen  present  are 
busy  with  the  afternoon  papers,  (just  come  in) 
when  suddenly  a  second  crash  is  heard,  and 
some  desperate,  unknown  mutilator  of  a  file — 
from  which  an  oblong,  three  inches  by  an  inch 
and  a  half  is  gone — is  held  up  to  the  scorn,  con- 
tumely, and  measureless  detestation  of  the  civi- 
lized world.     The  peal  of  thunder  dies  away, 


60  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

and  with  it  the  spare  figure  has  disappeared 
at  a  side  door,  out  of  the  Reading  Room  into 
the  Library  :  but  it  is  not  more  than  a  couple 
of  minutes  after,  that  the  Reading  Room  tal 
are  alive  with  placards,  bulletins,  and  announce- 
ments in  pen  and  ink,  variously  requiring,  im- 
ploring, and  warning  frequenters  of  the  room 
against  touching  said  files  with  unholy  hands. 
These  are  no  sooner  set  and  displayed,  than 
the  irrepressible  Superintendent  is  bending 
over  some  confidential  friend  at  one  of  the 
tables,  and  making  him  privately  and  fully  ac- 
quainted with  the  unheard  of  outrages  which 
require  these  violent  demonstrations. 

And  yet  a  kind  old  man  was  he  !  We  drop 
a  tear  much  more  promptly — from  much  nearer 
the  heart — over  his  lonely  grave,  than  upon 
the  tomb  of  even  men  as  great  and  distin- 
guished as  the  City  Aldermen,  who  once  wel- 
comed Father  JIathew  among  us  with  such 
enthusiasm.  Little  Trappan  had  his  ways,  and 
they  were  not  bad  ways — take  them  altogether. 


LITTLE    TRAPPAN.  61 

He  cherished  his  ambition  as  well  as  other  men. 

■i 

It  was  an  idea  of  his  own — suggested  from  no 
foreign  source,  prompted  by  the  movement  of 
no  learned  society — to  make  a  full,  comprehen- 
sive and  complete  collection  of  all  animated 
creatures  of  the  bug  kind  taken  within  the 
walls  and  in  the  immediate  purlieus  of  the 
building,  (for  such  he  held  the  edifice  of  the 
New  York  Society  to  be  par  excellence.)  This 
led  him  into  a  somewhat  more  active  way  of 
life  than  he  had  been  used  to,  and  involved  him 
in  climbings,  reachings-forth  of  the  arms,  rapid 
scurries  through  apartments,  in  pursuit  of  flies, 
darning-needles,  bugs,  and  beetles,  which,  we 
sometimes  thought,  were  exhausting  too  rapidly 
the  scant  vitality  of  the  old  File-keeper.  He 
however  achieved  his  object  in  one  of  the  rarest 
museums  of  winged  and  footed  creatures  to  be 
found  anywhere.  We  believe  he  reckoned  at 
the  time  of  his  demise,  twenty-three  of  the 
beetle  kind,  fourteen  bugs  and  one  mouse  in 
his  depository.    In  one  direction  he  was  foiled. 


62  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

There  was  a  great  bug,  of  the  roach  species, 
often  to  be  seen  about  the  place — a  hideously 
ill-favored  and  ill-mannered  monster — which, 
with  a  preternatural  activity  seemed  to  possess 
the  library  in  every  direction — sometimes  on 
desk,  sometimes  on  ladder,  tumbling  and  roll- 
ing about  the  floor — and  perpetually,  with  a 
sort  of  brutish  instinct  of  spite,  throwing  him- 
self in  the  old  man's  way,  and  continually 
thwarting  his  plans.  And  he  was  never,  with 
all  his  activity  and  intensity  of  purpose,  able 
to  capture  the  great  bug  and  stick  a  pin 
through  him,  as  he  desired.  This,  we  think, 
wore  upon  the  old  man  and  finally  shortened 
his  days.  It  is  not  long  since  that  the  little 
superintendent  yielded  up  the  ghost.  We 
hope  some  friend  to  his  memory  will  succeed 
in  mastering  the  bug,  and  in  carrying  out  the 
(known)  wishes  of  the  deceased. 

This  curious  and  rare  collection  was,  how- 
ever, but  a  subordinate  object  in  the  ambition 
of  the  bite  excellent  superintendent.     It  was  a 


LITTLE    TRAPPAN.  63 

desire  of  his — the  burning  and  longing  hope  of 
his  life — to  found  a  library  which  should  be 
in  some  measure  worthy  of  the  great  city  of 
New  York.  With  this  object  in  view,  he  made 
it  a  point  to  frequent  all  the  great  night  auc- 
tions of  Chatham-street,  the  Bowery,  and  Park 
Eow  :  and  he  scarcely  ever  returned  of  a  night 
without  bringing  home  some  rare  old  volume 
or  pamphlet  not  to  be  had  elsewhere  for  love 
or  money — which  nobody  had  ever  heard  of 
before — and  which  never  cost  him  more  than 
twice  its  value.  He  seemed  to  have  acquired 
his  peculiar  taste  in  the  selection  and  purchase 
of  books  from  that  learned  and  renowned  body, 
the  trustees  of  the  Society  Library,  with  which 
he  had  been  so  long  associated.  It  has  been 
supposed  by  some  that  he  was  prompted 
in  his  course  by  a  spirit  of  rivalry  with  the 
parent  institution.  There  is  some  plausibility 
in  this  conjecture,  for  at  the  time  of  his  death 
he  was  pushing  it  hard — having  accumulated 
in  the  course  of  ten  years'  diligent  devotion  of 


64  THE   PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

the  odd  sums  he  could  spare  from  meat  and 
drink  and  refreshment,  no  less  than  three  hun- 
dred volumes,  pamphlets,  and  odd  numbers  of 
old  magazines.  We  suppose,  in  acknowledg- 
ment of  a  generous  emulation,  it  is  the  inten- 
tion of  the  Trustees  to  place  a  tablet  to  his 
memory  on  the  walls  of  the  Parent  Institution. 

There  is  a  single  other  circumstance  con- 
nected with  the  career  of  the  deceased  super- 
intendent scarcely  worth  mentioning.  It  is 
perhaps,  too  absurd  and  frivolous  to  refer  to 
at  all :  and  to  save  ourselves  from  being  held 
in  light  esteem  by  every  intelligent  reader,  and 
impelling  him  to  laugh  in  our  very  face,  we 
shall  be  obliged  to  disclose  it  tenderly,  and 
under  a  generality. 

A  character  so  marked  and  peculiar  as  Little 
Trappan,  (Old  Trap,  as  he  was  familiarly 
called,)  could  have  scarcely  failed  to  attract 
more  or  less,  the  attention  of  the  observers  of 
human  nature.  They  would  have  spied  the 
richness  of  the  land,  and  dwelt  with  lingering 


LITTLE    TRAPPAN.  65 

pleasantry  on  his  little  traits  of  character  and 
disposition  from  day  to  day.  And  it  would 
have  so  happened  that  among  these  he  could 
not  have  escaped  the  regard  of  men  who  made 
it  a  business  to  study,  and  to  describe  human 
nature  in  its  varieties.  For  instance,  if  Little 
Trappan  had  been,  under  like  circumstances, 
a  denizen  of  Paris,  he  might,  probably,  long 
before  this,  have  figured  in  the  quaint  notices 
of  Jules  Janin;  Hans  Christian  Andersen 
would  have  taken  him  for  a  god-send  in  Stock- 
holm :  Thackeray  must  have  developed  him  we 
can  readily  suppose,  with  some  little  change,  in 
one  of  his  brilliant  sketches  or  stories. 

Then  what  a  time  we  should  have  had  of 
it !  Such  merry  enjoyment,  such  peals  of  hon- 
est laughter,  over  the  eccentricities  of  little  old 
Trap  ;  such  pilgrimages  to  the  library  to  get 
a  glimpse  of  him  f  such  paintings  by  painters 
of  his  person;  such  sketches  by  sketchers; 
such  a  to-do  all  round  the  world  !  But  it  was 
his  great  and  astounding  misfortune  to  belong 


66  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

to  this  miserable,  wo-begone,  and  fun-forsaken 
city  of  New  York,  and  to  have  fallen,  as  we 
are  told,  (though  we  know  nothing  about  it) 
into  the  hands  of  nobody  but  a  wretched 
American  humorist,  who,  it  is  vaguely  re- 
ported, has  made  him  the  hero  of  a  book  of 
some  three  hundred  and  fifty  pages — as  in  a 
word — New  York  is  New  York^Little  Trap- 
pan,  Little  Trappan — and  the  author  a  poor 
devil  native  scribbler — why,  the  less  said  about 
the  matter  the  better !  We  trust,  however, 
his  friendly  rivals,  the  trustees  of  the  library, 
will  be  good  enough  to  erect  the  tablet ;  if  not 
they  will  oblige  us  by  passing  a  resolution  on 
the  subject. 


And  now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  if  you 
please,  we  will  stroll  up  the  street. 

"What  have  we  announced  here  with  such  a 
display  of  body,  legs,  and  tail,  on  a  canvas 
which  covers  the  whole   house-side  ?      "  The 


THE    HAIRLESS    HORSE.  67 

Horse  without  any  hair  on  his  tail !"  A  friend 
of  ours  asserts,  (we  have  never  seen  the  wonder 
for  ourselves,)  that  he  has  had  a  private  inter- 
view with  this  horse  without  any  hair  on,  wTho 
is  stabling  for  the  present,  in  Broadway,  near 
Houston-street,  next  door  to  that  prime  house 
of  entertainment,  "  The  Eldorado."  (We 
strongly  suspect  our  friend  has  been  indulging 
at  that  house.)  He  asserts  that  he  had  it  direct 
from  the  horse  himself,  that  he  is  naturally  pro- 
vided with  as  good  a  coat  of  hair  as  any  decent 
beast  that  lives.  That  he  w7as  taken  in  his 
youth  and  shaved  to  the  very  hide,  with  the 
hope  that  the  hair  would  never  come  back 
again ;  that  it  does  come  back,  and  will  keep 
coming  back  ;  but  as  the  proprietors  were  de- 
termined to  have  a  "  hairless  horse,"  they  gave 
out  that  they  had  one  !  The  consequence 
is,  (continued  the'  horse,  as  reported  by  this 
gentleman,)  I  have  no  peace  of  my  life.  To 
keep  me  clean-shaved,  I  am  followed  about 
wherever  I  go,  by  a  regiment  of  barbers,  who 


68  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

are  constantly  at  me  with  their  razors  and 
tweezers,  so  that  I  am  half  the  time  flayed  alive. 
These  fellows  are  now  behind  that  little  screen 
you  see  there,  and  the  visitors'  backs  are  no 
sooner  turned  than  they  rush  out,  lather  me 
from  snout  to  tail,  and  commence  peeling  me 
with  their  razors.  Don't  believe  a  word  of  it. 
I  am  (in  spite  of  the  handbills)  a  humbug !  a 
catchpenny  !  and  not  a  natural  curiosity  !  Nor 
am  I  a  hairless  horse,  caught  in  South  America 
by  the  celebrated  Indian  Crossman,  whom  you 
can  now  see  in  Broadway,  third  door  above 
Houston-street.  Nor  is  this  animal  most  beau- 
tiful to  look  at,  and  perfectly  broke — without 
any  hair — and  looks  like  India  rubber.  I  have, 
it  is  true,  been  seen  by  thousands  of  ladies  and 
gentlemen  ;  but  they  have  not — not  one  of 
them — expressed  their  surprise  and  satisfac- 
tion. The  owner  has  not  been  offered  six 
thousand  dollars,  and  refused  it. 

So  much  for  the  report  of  our  curious  friend. 
He  has  evidently  been  misled  by  that  wicked 


DISBANDED    LAMP-POSTS.  69 

horse,  who  is,  no  doubt,  a  long-headed  fellow, 
and  wishes  to  get  the  sympathy  of  the  public, 
and  to  secure  more  oats,  and  perfect  liberty  to 
run  at  large.  He  is  hairless,  for  we  have  seen 
him  with  our  own  eyes,  and  there's  not  so 
much  as  an  eyelash  about  the  brute. 


As  we  may  have  a  night  scene  or  two  before 
we  are  through  our  panoramic  pilgrimage,  and 
remembering  that  the  moon  is  not  always  to  be 
depended  on,  I  dropped  in  the  other  morning 
upon  the  General  Superintendent  of  Lamps  for 
the  City  and  County  of  New- York.  While 
waiting  in  his  office,  we  cast  our  eye  into  the 
yard,  and  discovered  a  great  heap  of  disbanded 
wooden  lamp  posts — thrown  out  of  use  by  the 
introduction  of  gas  and  the  employment  of  iron 
posts.  Such,  said  we,  moralizing  to  ourselves., 
are  the  mutations  of  fortune :  to-day,  the 
Whigs  are  in  power,  and  have  all  the  good 


70  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

gifts  in  their  possession  ;  to-morrow  it  is  the 
Democrats  ;  one  hour  the  rich  merchant  carries 
his  head  high,  as  did  these  old  lamp-posts, 
above  the  surrounding  crowd — the  next  he  is 
laid  low  with  the  common  herd  of  the  bank- 
rupt; beauty  shines,  like  these,  to-night,  and 
when  the  morrow  comes,  she  pales  in  age,  and 
is  extinguished  forever ! 

"We  did  not,  however,  stop  with  these  reflec- 
tions, but  set  ourselves  upon  thinking  of  the 
various  stations  these  dead  lamp-posts  had  oc- 
cupied in  their  time.  How  some  had  gloried 
in  the  glitter  and  throng  of  Broadway,  while 
others  had  led  a  retired  life  in  remote  streets ; 
of  the  different  scenes  they  had  witnessed — 
from  early  evening,  when  the  wan  sempstress 
hies  homeward,  on  through  the  night,  as  revel 
grows  high  and  general.  Some  we  fancied, 
from  a  peculiar  twist  of  the  neck,  had  been 
more  observant  than  others.  There  was  one — ■ 
a  rusty,  ragged,  much-decayed  gentleman — 
we  were  quite  sure,  had  been  a  citizen  and 


DISBANDED    LAMP-POSTS.  71 

looker-on  upon  affairs^  here  in  our  island,  as  far 
back  as  the  time  of  the  old  Kevolutionary  war ; 
and  we  imagined,  if  he  could  but  once  speak, 
he  would  be  able  to  tell  strange  stories  of  plots 
and  counterplots,  of  secret  dispatches  read  by 
his  pale  light,  and  rebel  patriots  and  tory  gen- 
erals gathered  about  his  base. 

There  was  another,  on  which  we  thought  we 
discovered  traces  of  crimson  stains,  partially 
w7orn  away  or  sunk  into  the  w^ood.  Ha  ! — 
thought  we — this  fellow  has  seen  a  murder; 
and  then  we  ran  back,  in  our  mind,  to  the  time 
of  Johnson,  who,  it  will  be  remembered,  stab- 
bed Murray,  in  an  alley.  He  may,  staggering 
into  the  street,  have  clutched  with  his  blood- 
spotted  hands,  this  very  old  lamp-post  for 
support. 

A  sudden  turn  was  given  to  our  reflections 
by  seeing  some  fifty  of  these  decayed  gentle- 
men borne  away  on  a  cart,  which  immediately 
set  our  fancy  in  motion,  to  conceive  whither 
they  were  going.     Out  of  fashion  and  laid  low 


72  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

in  the  favor  of  the  world,  they  were  doubtless 
retiring  to  the  suburbs  of  the  town,  there  to 
set  up  for  a  season,  to  give  light  and  comfort 
to  the  villagers — to  watch  and  wait — to  light 
and  to  be  extinguished — till  the  advancing 
wTave  of  civilization  should  once  again  sweep 
them  from  the  earth,  and  bear  them  away  still 
farther  and  farther  westward,  till,  one  day, 
we  may  chance  upon  some  of  these,  our  old 
acquaintances,  illuminating  the  streets  of  San 
Francisco,  on  the  furthest  borders  of  the 
Pacific ! 


But  let  us  get  on  apace  with  our  Panorama ! 
Who  is  this  that  slouches  past  us,  in  rusty 
hat,  dusty  dress,  and  a  dead  cigar  rolling  like 
a  dismasted  spar  from  one  side  of  his  mouth  to 
the  other  ?  Small  of  person  as  he  is,  that  is 
one  of  the  most  eminent  of  New- York  notabili- 
ties— in  a  word,  and  in  your  ear,  that  is 


THE    HORSE-RADISH    ENTHUSIAST.  73 

THE  HORSE-RADISH  ENTHUSIAST. 
When  we  were  first  told  that  there  was  a 
man  in  this  city  who  had  devoted  himself  to 
the  interests  of  the  humble,  though  high-flavor- 
ed plant  known  as  the  Horse-Radish  ;  that  he 
believed  in  it ;  had  studied  its  qualities,  and 
had  given  his  life,  from  earliest  youth,  to  its 
culture  and  circulation,  we  were,  we  confess, 
entirely  incredulous.  We  had  never  seen  the 
man  and  had  some  reasonable  doubts  of  his 
existence.  "We  made  diligent  inquiry  for  his 
whereabouts — and  were  told  that  he  kept  his 
strong-hold  and  headquarters  somewhere  on 
the  East  River.  Struck  by  the  strangeness  of 
the  character  described  to  us,  and  determined 
to  settle,  once  for  all,  the  question  of  his  exist- 
ence or  non-existence,  we  resolved  on  a  pil- 
grimage of  discovery  in  that  remote  section  of 
the  metropolis.  Selecting  a  sunshiny  morning, 
and  appropriating  to  ourselves  a  seat  in  a  Dry 
Dock  stage,  which  would  carry  us,  we  were 


74  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

told,  somewhere  in  that  vicinity,  we  set  ou 
full  of  hopes  and  doubts  as  to  the  result  of  our 
venture.  In  a  half  hour's  ride,  and  a  walk  of 
a  quarter  more,  we  found  ourselves  in  the  front 
of  a  building,  ornamented  with  a  painting  at 
full  length  of  a  gallant  sailor  with  hat  in  hand, 
supporting  a  banner,  spread  to  the  breeze, 
inscribed  "  A  little  more  Horse-Eadish — 
Captain  Post ;"  and  underneath  in  broad,  un- 
mistakable capitals,  "  Our  Motto — Eough  and 
Keady  —  Our  Country,  Horse-Kadish  and 
Liberty."  Of  course  our  curiosity  was  not  a 
little  aggravated  to  get  a  view  of  the  man, 
who  could  thus  in  a  broad  expansive  spirit, 
identify  the  diffusion  of  Horse-Radish  with 
free  institutions  and  the  welfare  of  his  native 
land.  Besides  the  main  picture  we  found  a 
flag  with  similar  devices  flying  from  every  win- 
dow and  loop-hole  of  the  house  ;  and  in  the 
open  door  of  the  main  hall  we  espied  a  four- 
teen pound  gun  planted  with  a  point  blank 
range  towards  the  entrance.    "  This  man,"  we 


THE    HORSE-RADISH    ENTHUSIAST.  75 

said  to  ourselves,  "  certainly  sets  a  high  value 
upon  the  plant  he  has  taken  under  his  protec- 
tion, since  he  appears  to  be  prepared  to  protect 
it  at  the  hazard  of  his  life."  On  the  proper 
inquiry  we  were  ushered  into  a  large  back 
room,  and  as  we  found,  into  the  presence  of 
Captain  Post  himself,  whom  we  discerned  in 
the  centre  of  a  great  swarm  of  small  bottles 
with  sealed  tops,  and  holding  in  his  hand  an 
enormous  root  of  the  species  of  Radish  in  which 
he  deals.  Captain  Post,  to  our  pleased  sur- 
prise, addressed  us  in  the  most  affable  and 
familiar  manner,  and  from  the  first  moment  of 
our  introduction  to  him,  treated  us  as  a  friend 
and  equal.  There  was  a  glow  of  satisfaction 
on  his  countenance,  which  was  explained  when 
we  learned  that  the  root  he  then  had  in  his 
hand,  was  known  to  be  the  largest  ever  grown 
in  America,  and  that  ithad  been  raised  directly 
under  his  own  eye.  Captain  Post,  in  person 
is  of  small  build,  about  the  mould  of  the  late 
Emperor    of    France,    Napoleon   Bonaparte, 


76  THE    TEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

and  has  a  good  deal  of  the  quickness  of  eye 
and  vivacity  of  countenance  which  distinguish- 
ed that  eminent  general. 

He  has  also,  in  his  movements,  a  good  deal 
of  the  rapidity  and  decision  of  character  which 
marked  Napoleon ;  often  getting  a  couple 
of  dozen  of  the  grated  Radish  into  bottles  be- 
fore breakfast  ;  and  dispatching  ten  or  twenty 
dozen  to  the  down-town  hotels  in  the  course 
of  the  day.  He  takes  a  great  interest,  as  might 
be  perhaps  expected,  in  our  chief  public  houses, 
and  speaks  of  the  Astor  House,  American 
Hotel,  and  others  of  the  larger  ordinaries  as 
one  who  wishes  them  well.  That  he  does,  is 
shown  in  the  fact  that  he  furnishes  them  con- 
stantly with  Horse  Radish,  (a  hundred  small 
bottles  apiece  per  week,)  at  a  reasonable  ad- 
vance on  the  manufacturing  prices.  In  his 
domestic  circle,  and  in  all  the  intercourse  of 
private  life,  Captain  Post  is  much  more  amiable 
and  gentle  of  deportment  than  we  could  hope 
to  find  one  who  spent  the  better  part  of  his 


THE    HORSE-RADISH    ENTHUSIAST.  77 

time — his  most  laborious  and  thoughtful  hours 
— in  the  preparation  and  bottling  of  so  stimu 
lating  an  article  of  diet — he  is  about  thirty-five 
years  of  age,  and  has  a  long  life  of  public  use- 
fulness before  him.  When  we  consfaer  closely 
the  nature  of  his  business — we  will  learn  how 
much  he  has  to  do  with  our  dearest  interests 
"  For,"  as  he  properly  says,  "  this  yer  city  of 
York  would  be  sure  to  go  to  sleep  if  I  didn't 
prick  it  up  with  the  grated  Radish,  reg'larly." 
There  is  no  doubt  that  something — if  not  a 
great  deal — of  the  extraordinary  activity  of  our 
citizens  in  business,  which  has  made  them 
famous  all  the  world  over,  is  ascribable  to  the 
piquant  and  lively  qualities  of  Captain  Post's 
admirable  preparation.  It  is  regarded  by  per- 
sons who  have  given  attention  to  the  subject, 
as  decidedly  the  liveliest,  and  most  wholesome 
Horse  Radish  that  comes  into  market.  As 
Captain  Post  is  constantly  visited  by  great 
numbers  of  strangers  from  all  parts  of  the 
country — curious  to  see  a  man  who  has  im- 


78  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

parted  so  extraordinary  a  celebrity  and  inter- 
est to  what  many  have  regarded  as  a  very 
humble  esculent — a  mere  weed — we  may  men- 
tion, definitely,  that  he  is  to  be  found  on  the 
corner  of  j£venue  C  and  Sixth-street — most  at 
leisure — at  about  three  in  the  afternoon,  (when 
the  main  bottling  of  the  day  is  through  with,) 
and  that  persons  arriving  in  carriages  will  find 
it  to  their  convenience  to  set  down  with  the 
horses'  heads  towards  the  new  reservoir  of  the 
gas  company  at  the  foot  of  the  street. 


The  sun  begins  to  decline  a  little  upon  our 
picture.  We  have  had  something  of  a  tramp 
up  and  down,  and  I  think  that  here,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  we  may  fairly  treat  ourselves  to  a 
short  -holiday,  and  make  an  excursion  of  an 
hour  or  two  into  the  country,  for  the  sake  of 
fresh  air.  The  wreather  is  delicious ;  and  by- 
the  way,  before  we  set  out  let  me  tell  you  that 


A    SHORT    EXCURSION.  79 

capricious  as  it  seems,  New  York  furnishes  a 
singular  evidence  of  the  constancy  of  Nature. 
Examining  the  other  day  some  old  books  and 
records  relating  to  the  early  history  of  our 
island,  we  found  set  down  to  its  credit  the  self- 
same weather  and  climate  which  belong  to  it 
at  this  day  in  the  good  year  of  eighteen  hun- 
dred and  fifty-three.  The  same  soft  days  of 
sunshine  and  summer  creeping  in  upon  the 
bleakness,  and  no  doubt  causing  the  Indian 
dames  and  warriors  to  skip  along  the  heights 
and  ridges,  pretty  much  as  do  our  fine  ladies 
and  exquisites  on  the  promenade  side  of  Broad- 
way. Even  in  the  human  nature  of  this  island, 
some  would  say  two  hundred  years  of  war, 
steam,  and  trade,  had  wrought  no  considerable 
change  ;  that  in  their  essential  qualities  the 
men  and  women  are  the  same;  that  the  paint 
used  by  the  squaw  was  only  got  out  of  the 
earth  with  her  own  hand,  while  that  employed 
by  the  modern  fine  lady  is  procured  from  the 
store   with  her  purse  ;  that  the  Indian-chief 


80  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

dandy  strutted  in  a  blanket,  while  his  Broad- 
way rival  disports  in  a  swallow-tail;  and  that 
if  they  were  all  (according  to  the  old  familiar 
illustration,)  shaken  in  a  sack  together,  the  old 
sachem  who  had  spent  the  prime  of  his  life  in 
scalping  his  neighbors,  would  have  quite  as 
good  a  chance  of  coming  out  first,  as  the  Wall- 
street  broker  who  devotes  himself  to  the  shav- 
ing of  notes. 

And  now  we  will  set  forth  to  enjoy  part 
of 

4N    AFTERNOON  NOT   FAR  FROM  NEW  YORK. 

Who  knows  when  he  tosses  a  copper  in  the 
air,  whether  it  shall  come  down  a  naked  "  One 
Cent,"  or  the  bountiful  goddess  of  Liberty ! 
A  great  poet  has  said  there  are  but  two  mo 
ments  in  the  life  of  a  pearl-diver — the  one, 
when  he  plunges,  a  beggar — the  other  when 
he  rises,  a  prince  !  But  who  can  promise  him 
self  when  he  sets  forth  on  an  excursion  of 
pleasure,  that  he  shall  bring  back  anything  but 


A    SHORT    EXCURSION.  81 

an   aching  bead,  weary  limbs,  and   a  memory 
too  tenacious  of  sandy  roads,  and  a  bad  inn? 

There  is  a  fortune  in  small  things  as  well  as 
great ;  and  as  we  push  our  course  for  a  little 
way-side  ferry  on  the  North  River,  who  would 
have  assured  us  that  we  were  to  be  gratified 
in  the  slightest  degree,  beyond  the  ordinary 
run  of  travellers,  and  the  lean  chances  of  mor- 
tality ?  To-be-sure,  there  is  something  hope- 
ful in  coming,  whilst  tarrying  under  the  awn- 
ing, upon  a  candy  dealer  with  his  basket,  who 
presents  a  marvellous  and  highly  colored  re- 
semblance or  copy  of  a  distinguished  Ameri- 
can author — suggesting  to  us,  in  his  basket  of 
knick-knacks  and  small  comfits,  a  happy  parody 
of  the  dainty  trifles  with  which  his  great  ori- 
ginal has  titivated  the  public  any  time  these 
twenty  years.  The  Hudson  River,  too,  may 
be  set  down  at  any  time  of  day  or  night,  as  a 
pretty  sure  card.  You  may  hug  yourself  con- 
fidently on  its  waters  with  securing  two  or 
three  cabinet  pictures,  a  well  executed  land- 


82  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA 

scape,  and  light  and  shadow  of  scenery  near 
by  and  far  off,  not  to  be  esteemed  meanly. 
Aboard  the  boat,  bound  in  due  course  for 
Fort  Lee,  up  the  river,  we  encounter  baskets 
with  spring-lids,  in  possession  of  sundry  heavy- 
whiskered  descendants  of  David,  and  which  it 
is  a  sworn  thing  store  something  with  a  relish, 
from  the  awful  eyes  with  which  they  are  re- 
garded by  the  crew  of  boys  and  girls  of  the 
bread  and  butter  age,  who  hover  about,  and 
who,  whatever  the  crisis  of  affairs  in  the  navi- 
gation, never  once  lose  sight  for  a  moment  of 
the  handles.  No  incident,  so  far,  worth  record- 
ing, till  we  approach  Bull's  Ferry,  when,  lo !  a 
long  red  streamer  is  discovered  flying  from  a 
pole  planted  directly  at  the  door  of  the  public 
house  at  the  landing ;  as  we  near  it,  we  read 
on  the  streamer  "  Ned  Buntline's  Own" — and 
spreading  himself  on  the  verandah  we  dis- 
cover a  broad-chested  man  in  a  blue  frock  coat, 
with  a  military  undress  air — and  lying,  just  off 
the  shore,  abreast  the  tavern,  a  yacht,  with 


A    SHORT    EXCURSION.  83 

another  penon  with  a  like  inscription — from  all 
of  which  we  understand  that  a  well-known  city 
editor  has  taken  possession  of  the  neighbor- 
hood and  holds  court  at  the  ferry,  as  the  bar- 
ons of  old  at  a  castle  of  strength.  Here,  we 
are  informed,  he  keeps  his  state,  and  makes 
merry  with  a  crew  of  roysterers,  on  land  by 
day,  and  in  cruises  by  night.  FalstafF  and  his 
route  of  followers  come  to  life  again  !  What 
matters  it  whether  we  are  of  his  inclining  or 
not  ?  Whether  we  approve  his  organ  of  opin- 
ion in  the  city  as  orthodox  or  not  ?  We  look 
upon  the  thing  as  it  is.  And  here  is  a  bit  of 
fun  under  our  very  noses,  in  the  heart  of  the 
busy  nineteenth  century,  which  teaches  us 
something  if  we  will  take  the  trouble  to  look 
at  it  with  our  own  eyes.  A  city  editor  has 
pitched  his  stronghold  on  the  Jersey  shore,  and 
letting  grow  his  fiery  beard,  snaps  his  fingers 
at  the  town,  and  puts  at  scorn  and  defiance,  all 
the  puissance  of  tip-staves,  courts,  and  posses. 
We  are,  however,  bound  up  the  river,  and 


84  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

haven't  the  time  allowed  us  to  stop  if  we  would. 
With  a  good  head  of  steam  (the  captain  has 
mounted  a  new  hat  this  morning,  and  feels 
bound  to  do  something  extraordinary,)  we  pass 
in  the  awful  repose  of  its  shut-up  and  deserted 
inn,  Tilletudlum  the  classic  ;  though  why  it  is 
called  Tilletudlum,  rather  than  the  village  of 
Tompkinville,  or  the  village  of  Small  Beer,  or 
Puddle-come-bung,  we  find  laid  down  in  none 
of  the  current  guide  books.  Fort  Lee  at  last, 
and  the  pick-nickers  with  their  baskets  ashore, 
mounting  the  acclivity  they  pitch  themselves 
in  the  shade,  directly  in  the  lee — before  the 
very  door  of  the  public  house — for  which  there 
is  no  charge — and  proceed  to  entertain  the 
landlord  with  the  sight  of  one  of  the  best  en- 
joyed banquets  we  have  ever  known.  The 
landlord  comes  to  the  door  once  or  twice  and 
grins  strangely,  goes  in,  in  haste,  and  presently 
an  outcry  is  heard  in  the  upper  chamber — 
known  by  its  peculiar  character  to  belong  to 
the  landlord's  oldest  son  undergoing  a   u  lam- 


A    SHORT    EXCURSION.  85 

ming,"  The  pick-nickers  hold  on  their  course 
and  laugh  louder  than  ever.  They  propose  to 
leave  the  crumbs  on  the  lawn,  that  it  may  not 
be  forgotten  that  they  have  been  there.  There 
is  a  company  of  dancers  from  the  city  on  the 
other  side  of  the  house,  who  are  perhaps 
dancing  to  the  same  purpose. 

We  have  seen  something,  but  not  all  yet — 
we  might  sit  a  long  afternoon,  with  our  cigar, 
under  the  awning,  watching  the  sloops  that 
come  and  go,  speeding  past,  like  dreams,  with 
their  spread  sails — but  the  cigars  we  have  with 
us  are  of  that  temper  which  will  neither  light 
nor  go  out — neither  tobacco — nor  weed — nor 
stick — utterly,  hopelessly,  and  irrecoverably 
impracticable,  and  such  as  it  is  the  delight  and 
glory  of  sinful  dealers  to  sell,  with  a  hope  or 
perhaps  inward  consciousness  that  they  are  to 
be  attempted  remote  from  civilized  life,  and  all 
prospect  of  relief;  and  that  distant  woods  and 
solitudes  shall  be  made  vocal  with  long,  loud, 


86  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

and  unrestrained  curses  in  acknowledgment  of 
their  wicked  craft. 

We  must  tramp  it  back,  part  of  the  way  at 
least,  by  the  woods.  It  is  discussed  whether 
to  Tilletudlum  or  Bull's  Ferry,  and  is  pre- 
sently concluded  that  no  power  of  foot  could 
attain  the  lower  landing  before  the  boat  would 
shoot  by.  To  Tilletudlum  then  in  a  gentle 
jog — when  to  our  horror  off  goes  the  bell, 
which  we  supposed  had  a  half  hour  at  least  to 
spare  and  keep  quiet  in — and  we  are  forced  to 
push  on  at  a  bouncing  pace  or  lodge  in  the 
woods.  In  a  breathing  space  we  sit  down  in 
the  solitude  of  that  village,  or  rather  villa  of 
mighty  name :  and  have  the  satisfaction  of 
noticing  the  steamer  lying  quietly  at  her  wharf, 
not  having,  in  spite  of  all  her  notification,  stir- 
red a  peg  as  yet.  She  comes  along  bye-and- 
bye,  and  when  wre  are  once  aboard,  wTe  suppose 
she  is  bound  to  New-York.  No  such  thing. 
She  espies  a  hat  and  petticoat  on  the  hill — 
more  hats — more  petticoats — and  the  road  as 


A    SHORT    EXCURSION.  87 

far  as  you  can  see,  is  alive  with  trampers, 
(another  party  of  pick-nickers  from  the  back 
country  who  have  been  startled  in  their  revelry, 
and  are  making  for  the  boat  for  dear  life.)  At 
the  head  of  the  line,  watched  anxiously  in  his 
mighty  paternal  struggle,  a  middle-aged  gentle- 
man in  white  breeches  is  espied,  dragging  on 
with  the  speed  of  an  Eclipse  and  the  energy 
of  a  Hercules,  a  wicker-wagon  by  a  pole.  It 
is  his  first-born,  and  to  do  the  poor  man  jus- 
tice, he  toils  down  the  slope  like  a  giant.  All 
hands  in  the  boat  are  assembled  at  the  rails  to 
welcome  him  in,  should  he  reach  the  boat  in 
time  ;  but  modest,  as  worthy — (lost  sight  of 
for  a  moment  at  a  toil -gate  on  the  road) — he 
has  resigned  the  pole  to  a  female  hand,  and 
tries  to  look  about,  as  he  comes  aboard,  as  if 
he  had  no  connection  with  the  wicker- wagon 
whatever. 

It  is  now  discovered,  as  they  infuse  them- 
selves among  the  old  assortment  of  passengers, 
that  the  new-comers  are  rather  distinguished 


88  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

people  ;  and  that  they  embellish  the  boat,  be- 
sides their  own  delightful  and  tonnish  persons, 
with  sundry  triangles,  banjos,  and  tamborines, 
and  a  strong  suspicion  spreads  about  that 
they  are  from  East  Bowery,  in  their  primitive 
estate.  The  presumption  is  raised  that  they 
may  be  sometimes  seen  in  the  pit  of  the  Bow- 
ery Theatre,  and  that  they  are  original  read- 
ers of  the  cheap  weeklies.  They  are  at  least  so 
markedly  peculiar  in  dress  and  appearance,  as 
to  color  the  company  wherever  they  mingle 
with  it.  At  first — the  boat  is  under  way — 
they  are  in  a  wonderful  state  of  commotion, 
moving  uneasily  about,  pushing  and  pulling 
each  other  freely,  and  indulging  in  a  good  deal 
of  vigorous  horse-play.  The  young  ladies  of 
the  party  go  forward  on  the  upper  deck,  where 
they  encounter  a  spanking  gale — which  with 
the  dilation  of  dress  and  coy  development  of 
form  it  occasions,  brings  on  a  decided  increase 
of  merriment  in  the  party.     At  length,  and  all 


A    SHORT    EXCURSION.  89 

at  once,  as  if  it  were  a  sort  of  rocket  shot  into 
the  air,  a  cry  is  raised,  u  Let's  have  a  dance !" 

With  precious  little  delay  and  still  less  cere- 
mony, an  impromptu  committee  clears  the  deck, 
setting  aside  old  women,  and  certain  spare 
young  men  of  the  "  aristocratic  quarter,"  who 
are  somehow  on  board,  along  with  the  stools, 
as  if  they  were  no  more  to  them  than  so  much 
dumb  furniture  in  the  way.  The  banjo  and 
triangle  take  up  their  station  against  a  post  in 
the  centre  :  two  sets  are  formed  and  away 
they  go.  Free  as  air — zig-zag,  with  a  dash 
and  a  fling — with  more  muscle  expended  in  one 
shuffle  than  in  a  whole  evening  of  a  fashionable 
party — the  young  women  half  mad  with  zeal, 
they  never  stay  at  a  single  dance,  but  go  right 
on,  like  a  strong-chested  reader,  without  minding 
colons,  or  periods,  or  ends  of  sentences — from 
one  dance  to  another  without  taking  breath. 

11  Hallo  !  There  he  is  !  That's  him  !"  "  No, 
that  ain't  Neddy."  "Yes  it  is!"  "/know 
him  !"  and  the  dance  is  broken  up  in  a  hurry, 


90  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

and  all  parties  rush  to  the  rail.  The  broad- 
chested  man  of  Bull's  Ferry,  in  the  military 
undress,  has  come  down  from  his  post  on  the 
verandah,  and  is  standing  under  a  broad- 
brimmed  hat  on  the  wharf.  "  Three  cheers  for 
Neddy  I"  Three  cheers  are  given  which  evi- 
dently throw  the  gigantic  Edward  into  a  doubt 
— he  don't  know  whether  they  mean  it  or  not 
— (the  East  Boweryites  are  fast  practical 
jokers,)  he  slides  off  his  hat,  smiles  sideways, 
and  compromises  the  matter  with  a  waive  of 
his  hand  which  may  express  "  Much  obliged, 
gentlemen  !"  or  u  No  you  don't !"  just  as  you 
please  to  interpret  it. 

Vigorous  dances  again  without  number,  then 
negro  songs  attempted  with  doubtful  success. 
A  man-boy  of  the  party  with  a  crippled  brown 
linen  coat,  and  a  hat  of  the  kind  generally 
worn  by  circus-men  in  their  private  character, 
undertakes  a  complicated  melody,  referring  to 
one  Tucker,  fails,  and  withdraws  down  stairs, 
slightly  chop-fallen  and  a  good  deal  laughed  at. 


A    SHORT    EXCURSION.  91 

Other  singers,  with  various  fortunes,  occupy 
the  time,  when  presently  Brown  Coat  returns 
and  whispers  to  one  of  the  party,  the  news,  what- 
ever it  is,  spreads  as  if  by  electric  telegraph,  or 
faster — and  the  male  portion  of  the  company 
rise  as  one  man,  and  rush  below  stairs.  "  Fight " 
proved  to  have  been  the  magical  summons — 
but  it  was  merely  a  fetch  of  the  Brown  Coat, 
in  revenge  for  his  own  misfortune.  They  were 
down  there  and  they  wouldn't  go  up  for  noth- 
ing— so  they  all  take  a  drink  at  the  bar. 

The  ship  most  surely  tossed  must  and  may 
reach  a  port — and  steamboats  will  get  to  the 
wharf,  if  you  will  have  patience.  Having  in  a 
single  afternoon  travelled  twenty-two  miles  by 
water,  and  two  by  land — having  seen  and  con- 
templated an  indefinite  range  of  scenery — hav- 
ing discovered  at  least  four  distinct  varieties  of 
character  of  the  human  species;  havinglearned 
something  new  (as  in  the  case  of  the  Hebrew 
pic-nickers  and  the  impracticable  cigars,)  of  the 
artful  selfishness  of  men,  and  (in  the  case  of 


92  THE    PEN-AND-INK    TANORAMA. 

the  landlord's  son,)  of  the  unjust  distribution 
of  rewards  and  punishments  in  the  world — with 
a  vast  deal  more  which  the  intelligent  observer 
must  fathom  and  disclose  for  himself — we  have 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  open  a  door  wher- 
ever you  will,  whether  it  be  closet  or  parlor, 
you  are  sure  to  come  upon  a  store  of  strange 
sights,  which  will  pay  you  well  for  the  trouble 
of  turning  the  knob. 


In  town  again,  w7ith  eyes  sharpened  by  our 
holiday — let  us  follow  our  panorama  as  it 
moves  along.  Ladies  and  gentlemen,  you  have 
probably  seen  several  historical  paintings,  and 
read  a  number  of  historical  romances  in  your 
time  with  profound  admiration  !  Will  you  be 
good  enough  to  look  this  way  at 

THE  NEW  YORK  FIREMAN. 
Mark  the  picture  before  you.      It  is  the 


THE    NEW    YORK    FIREMAN.  93 

morning  of  a  wide  and  fierce  conflagration. 
The  clouds  are  dull  and  sullen — the  streets 
are  bare.  There  is  no  pomp  of  banners,  no 
music  of  chivalry,  but  a  band  of  worn-out  men 
are  dragging  on  their  faithful  engine,  grimed 
and  sooty.  At  their  head  marches  the  fore- 
man, his  leathern  cap  cased  in  ice  of  the  frozen 
water,  his  breast  with  a  mail  of  the  same  qual- 
ity, rope  in  hand,  his  trumpet  hanging  listlessly 
at  his  side.  And  so  they  pass  on  wearily  and 
slowly,  for  they  have  not  seen  sleep  nor  known 
pause  in  their  contest  with  the  elements  for 
two  days'  space.  And  now  tell  us,  where  in 
history  or  romance  is  to  be  found  a  picture  of 
self-devotion  and  modest  manliness,  of  forti- 
tude and  courage  like  this  ?  No  knight  return- 
ing from  the  field,  no  victor-chief  from  battle, 
with  gorgeous  pennons  and  the  plaudits  of  his 
people,  presents  to  us  a  spectacle  which  more 
keenly  touches  our  sympathies,  and  prompts 
us  more  readily  to  acknowledge  the  nobility 
of  our  nature,  than  the  sight  of  these  brave 


94  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

Firemen,  returning  to  their  homes  in  the  weary 
morning. 

In  the  famous  Middle  Ages,  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  there  was  a  man  who  separated 
himself  from  society,  put  his  head  in  a  steel 
cask,  his  body  in  a  steel  jerkin,  and  his  feet  in 
stirrups,  and?  pricked  forth  through  Europe, 
with  his  lance,  to  rescue  damsels,  quell  drag- 
ons, and  do  the  work  of  righteousness  gener- 
ally— at  his  own  charges.  This  ancient  cheva- 
lier for  a  long  time  lived  in  history,  an  example 
of  pure  benevolence  and  disinterested  virtue, 
without  a  successor.  In  fact  it  was  not  till  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  and  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  that  one  having  anything  like  rival  claims, 
wras  to  be  found.  This  more  recent  night- 
errant  encases  his  head  in  a  leathern  cap,  his 
body  in  a  red  flannel  shirt,  and  with  turned-up 
trowsers  and  heavy  boots,  rushes  forth,  on 
foot,  to  do  execution,  without  hire  or  reward, 
on  that  fiery  dragon  Combustion  itself  The 
only  pure  specimen  extant,  of  the  unadulter- 


THE    NEW    YORK    FIREMAN.  95 

ated  man  of  benevolence  of  modern  times,  and 
the  present  mixed  state  of  society,  is  the  Fire- 
man. What  motive  has  he  ? — what  motive 
can  he  have,  (unless  pure  madness,)  in  rushing 
from  his  bed  at  midnight,  snatching  at  his 
clothes,  tumbling  down  stairs,  and  in  a  half 
distracted  condition  pulling  foot  for  the  engine- 
house,  tearing  open  its  doors,  hustling  out  the 
machine,  and  seizing  the  rope,  hurrying  away 
at  the  rate  of  ten  miles  an  hour,  shouting  him- 
self hoarse  by  the  way,  "  Fire — F  ire — Fire  ! 
Fire  !  Fire  !" — throwing  himself  like  a  sala- 
mander into  the  very  thickest  of  the  raging 
element — and  in  a  couple  of  hours  walking 
home  to  bed,  sweating  like  a  porpoise  ? 

We  look  upon  a  Fireman,  in  his  disinterest- 
ed integrity,  as  all  that  survives  uninjured 
from  the  golden  age  of  Man,  a  truly  noble 
character,  despite  his  errors.  To-be-sure  some 
little  remains  of  mortal  frailty  hang  about  the 
Fire  boy.  People  of  a  censorious  turn  have 
said   he  loves   a  smasher — rather  stiff.      He  is 


96  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

seen  often  in  company  with  a  strong-flavored 
long-nine.  He  cocks  his  hat  upon  his  head  in 
a  manner  a  little  irksome  to  the  strictest  taste. 
He  sometimes  chews  :  and,  perhaps,  occasion- 
ally swears  a  little.  It  is  one  of  the  peculiari- 
ties into  which  he  has  no  doubt  fallen,  from 
being  pitched  in  the  midst  of  the  corrupt  civi- 
lization of  our  times,  that  he  hangs  about 
corners  at  night,  in  gangs;  and  that  somehow 
or  other  he  slides  with  a  marvelous  rapidity 
into  a  "  muss"  or  row.  He  even  alleges  that 
he  must  be  indulged  in  one  of  these,  now  and 
then,  or  he  will  "  spoil."  But  in  the  great, 
manly  virtues — which  the  stony-hearted  Nine- 
teenth Century  has  little  faith  in — of  doing  an 
immense  amount  of  work  for  no  pay — he  "  can't 
be  beat." 

The  number  of  houses,  churches,  theatres, 
hotels,  buildings  of  every  name  and  kind  be 
has  saved,  without  receiving  a  farthing  of  their 
rents  or  revenues,  without  being  in  the  slight- 
est degree  concerned  in  their  title,  no  man  can 


THE    NEW    YORK    FIREMAN  97 

count.  The  Fireman's  personal  graces  are  per- 
haps not  in  all  cases  quite  equal  to  his  goodness 
of  heart.  His  knowledge  of  the  Fine  Arts 
may  be  rather  limited — his  acquaintance  with 
Music  being  confined  to  the  ring  or  roar  of  the 
City  Hall  Bell,  and  the  jingle  of  the  Hose  Cart 
— for  Pictures  he  may  chiefly  devote  himself 
to  the  back-board  or  tail  of  the  "  machine" — - 
and  as  to  Statuary,  he  has  perhaps  never  given 
the  slightest  heed  to  more  than  one  specimen, 
and  that  is  the  wooden  Fireman  with  the 
trumpet  in  his  mouth,  (always  a  blowing,)  over 
15  in  Chrystie-street.  His  carriage  of  his  person 
in  the  street  is  peculiar — rather  abroad,  and  in 
the  style  of  movement  sometimes  of  a  heavy- 
footed  Buffalo.  This  is  an  eccentricity  all  the 
inculcations  and  elegant  directions  of  Mr. 
Parker  at  Tammany  Hall  have  never  been 
able  to  qualify.  It  belongs  to  the  race,  and 
will  we  suppose,  last  with  it. 

"  Clear  the  way  there  !    What  do  you  mean3 
eh  !  stopping  the  street,  old  feller  ?" 


98  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA* 

"  None  of  your  lip,  leather  head — I've  cum 
on  the  track  first — d'ye  give  away  !" 

"  Boys,  stand  by." 

Pop — smash — crash — blood — two  men  down 
— a  club  flying  about — bang— whose  down 
now?  Who  swung  that  slung  shot?  I  see 
you,  Bill  Peterson.  Bang  again — crash — four 
men  carried  off  badly  wounded.  And  the  two 
machines  separate  and  sullenly  make  their  way 
home. 

This  is  considered  by  many  persons  a  neces- 
sary variety  in  the  course  of  a  Fireman's  life; 
a  fight  at  least  every  three  months.  The 
machine  represents  the  head  of  the  clan,  and 
the  bitterness  is  often  as  desperate  between  22 
and  45,  as  the  feuds  between  the  old  Scotch 
clans,  or  the  fiercest  Indian  tribes  on  our  bor- 
ders. They  are  handed  down  from  one  gen- 
eration of  firemen  to  another;  if  the  machines 
can't  head  each  other  in  getting  to  a  fire,  or 
"  overflow"  them  there  in  a  fair  contest,  they 
must  have  a  fight  on  their  way  back. 


THE    NEW    YORK    FIREMAN.  99 

The  Firemen — the  genuine  Firemen — we 
believe,  generally  belong  to  the  two  sides  of 
the  city,  rarely  to  the  centre ;  if  anything  the 
East  side  has  the  decided  preponderance,  and 
furnishes  the  richest  specimens.  He  rarely 
leaves  the  city,  and  has  never  been  seen  farther 
out  of  town  than  Hoboken.  No  persuasion,  no 
temptation  could  lure  him  out  of  sound  of  the 
Hall  bell.  When  he  ceases  to  hear  that,  he  is 
a  dead  man.     You  may  bury  him. 

On  Sundays  he  often  mounts  a  heavy  horse, 
(one  of  his  boss's — the  butcher,)  and  sets  forth 
on  the  Third  Avenue.  Sometimes  he  gets 
possession  of  a  gossamer  sulky,  and  doesn't 
allow  himself  to  be  challenged  to  a  trial  of 
speed  more  than  once  without  responding.  He 
took  a  drink  at  starting  from  town — at  the  end 
of  the  race  he  drinks  again.  To  acquire  steadi- 
ness in  aiming  the  pipe  at  fires,  the  Firemen 
often  form  themselves  into  target  companies, 
and  parading  the  streets  in  a  half-uniform,  with 
a  target  borne  aloft  by  a  small  black  boy,  they 


100  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

seek  some  suburb  where  they  practice  at  the 
mark,  and  returning,  display  the  target  (the 
negro  boy  rolling  his  eyes  with  awful  rapi- 
dity, as  if  he  had  fired  all  the  shots,) 
pierced  to  the  very  centre  with  holes.  There 
are  those  who  have  no  faith  in  these  apparent 
perforations — who  regard  them  as  having  been 
made  strictly  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
mechanics — and  not  of  projectiles — by  the 
augur,  not  by  the  ball.  There  is  a  class  of 
people  who  consider  these  Firemen's  target- 
parades,  as  an  assumption,  a  make-believe 
altogether,  an  artful  concession  to  the  military 
spirit  of  the  times.  Some  say  they  are  not 
real  Firemen  who  partake  of  them,  but  pre- 
tenders :  that  no  real  Fireman  would  so  far 
degrade  himself  as  to  wear  the  livery  of  a  mere 
soldier,  &c,  &c.  We  believe  Firemen  have 
fired  at  the  target  and  hit  it.  Others  are  wel- 
come to  their  own  opinion.  As  it  is  the  glory 
of  the  hero  to  die  on  the  open  field  of  battle, 
it  is  the  ambition  of  a  Fireman  to  fall  at  a  fire. 


THE    NEW    YORK    FIREMAN.  101 

It  is  then  only  that  he  dies  truly  and  in  char- 
acter. Then  the  fire-bells  are  muffled  and 
rung  dolefully,  the  machines  put  on  crape,  the 
companies  are  marshalled  in  solemn  array  to 
the  funeral,  the  engineers  with  their  trumpets, 
the  City  Aldermen  in  attendance  with  their 
staves  of  office,  enwreathed  in  black.  It  is  only 
in  such  a  death  that  the  community  is  once 
in  a  while,  taught  to  feel  that  in  every  Fire- 
man it  has  a  hero,  who  is  ready  at  all  times  to 
yield  his  life  for  the  safety  of  the  orphan  and 
the  widow — who  is  willing  to  perish  that 
society  may  sleep  in  peace.  May  his  leather 
cap  be  immortal,  may  its  bright  gloss  never  be 
dimmed,  and  may  his  patent-leather  belt  be 
still  resplendent  as  Orion,  with  al^the  virtues  ! 


Cross  the  city  due  East :  in  that  direction 
lies  a  mighty  region,  through  which  our  pan- 
oramic painting  should  roll  like  the  Mississippi, 
but  it  is  checked  in  its  flow  by 


102  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

A    GRAND    PAGEANT.    - 

Every  now  and  then — at  least  as  often  as 
twice  in  the  year — there  comes  a  sunshiny 
day  upon  this  great  city,  when  one,  wandering 
into  the  remote  settlements  of  the  town,  will 
observe,  from  an  early  hour  in  the  morning,  a 
peculiar  and  mysterious  quiet  brooding  over 
the  streets.  He  will  feel  that  this  is,  in  some 
way,  but  he  cannot  tell  exactly  how,  connected 
with  a  bay  nag  with  a  demi-pique  saddle,  and 
holsters  and  shiny  housings,  standing  by  the 
walk  in  a  by-street,  held  in  the  bridle  by  a 
vagabond  black  boy,  with  other  boys  of  the 
two  orders  lingering  about.  "Wherever  the 
philosophic  observer  goes,  he  finds  similar 
horses,  trappings,  holders,  and  groups,  which 
seem  to  belong  to  the  day,  and  to  be  spon- 
taneous, like  so  many  mush-rooms  of  the  early 
spring.  The  crop  multiplies  with  the  clock, 
and  gets  presently  to  be  pretty  thick  in  all  the 
by-ways  of  the  town  ;   and   begins  to  take  a 


A    GRAND    PAGEANT.  103 

bristling  form  in  lines  of  troops  ranged  against 
house  walls  and  along  curb  stones.  And  now, 
following  these,  wThich  are  the  faint  streaks  in 
the  East  preceding  the  broad  glory  of  the  day 
— there  is  an  obvious  set  of  the  tide  of  the  city 
towards  a  central  line.  The  occasion  is  clearly 
a  pageant ;  from  a  crapy  feeling  in  the  air  it 
must  be  a  funeral  pageant.  The  main  line  of 
the  procession  is  Broadway  ;  and,  like  a  great 
magnet,  as  it  lies  along  the  city,  it  draws  the 
population  from  remote  streets,  first  one  by 
one,  scattering  along;  then  the  drums  begin 
to  beat  at  the  quarters — troops  hurrying  to- 
wards the  Park — on  foot — horseback — and  in 
omnibuses,  with  their  bayonets  thrust  into  the 
air  out  of  the  windows  and  back-door.  More 
people  making  for  Broadway ;  enterprizing 
boys  climbing  the  trees  in  the  Park  ;  the  great 
platform  filling  ;  red,  blue,  and  gray  companies 
of  citizen  soldiery  rapidly  assembling — General 
Sanford  on  horseback,  calm  and  decidedly  ele- 
giac of  feature — Mr.  Mace's  show-hearses,  with 


104  THE    FEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

six  horses  apiece,  and  some  eighteen  or  twenty 
black  and  white  plumes,  have  entered  the  great 
gates — with  a  sensation  in  the  crowd — various 
gentlemen  in  citizen's  dress,  with  long  sticks 
in  their  hands,  are  seen  emerging  from  the 
Hall  and  ranging  themselves  on  the  upper  plat- 
form. The  coffin  with  the  heroic  remains  of 
the  patriot- warrior  are  brought  down  the  steps 
from  the  Governor's  Room — where  the  brave 
General,  alive  in  an  admirable  portrait  by  Kel- 
logg, is  looking  upon  himself  dead  and  changed 
in  the  coffin  which  is  directly  under  his  eye — 
the  vast  crowd  receive  them  in  silence.  With 
wailing  trumpets  on  the  move  into  Broadway, 
and  now  look — look  with  all  the  eyes  you  have  t 
Saw  you  ever  such  streams  of  people — such 
flocks — lanes — crowds — groups.  On  foot,  in 
trees,  on  stoops,  in  areas,  the  windows,  balcon- 
ies, house-tops,  alive  with  faces,  and  smiling 
or  looking  forth  tenderly  from  the  crapen  ban- 
ners and  hangings  with  which  the  houses  and 
hotel-fronts    are   darkened — so    many    lovely 


A    GRAND    PAGEANT.  105 

faces,  that  you  wonder  from  what  populous 
and  hidden  paradises  they  have  stolen  upon 
the  light  of  common  day  in  Broadway.  You 
know  that  they  are  in  some  way  related  to  the 
habitual  dwellers  in  these  houses — that  they 
are  either  townspeople  or  acquaintances  who 
have  made  an  interest  in  time  for  a  look-out  on 
the  Pageant.  On  it  moves — the  mournful 
music  keeping  before — and  telling  a  mile  away 
that  it  is  coming.  Of  all  sad  things  in  the 
whole  solemnity,  the  saddest  being  the  horse 
of  the  deceased  hero,  walking  slowly  along  in 
the  line  with  all  his  mountings,  but  riderless. 
We  cannot  fail  to  observe  as  it  passes  on,  some 
shows  and  exhibitions — here,  as  in  other  places 
■ — of  the  fantasies  of  sympathy  and  grief: 
Among  them  we  have  a  small  liberty  pole  dis- 
played from  one  window  wound  in  crape  :  in 
another  a  bust — supposed  to  be  the  late  Gen- 
eral— with  a  wreath  of  flowers  and  a  black 
band  or  ribbon  about  the  neck.  With  an  im- 
mensity of  people  not  to  be  counted — all  civil, 


106  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

temperate,  and  decorous,  the  well-behaved 
Pageant  flows  on,  till  it  reaches  one  of  the 
customary  turnings  of  the  current  and  passes 
into  the  Bowery — where  we  find  another 
whole  city  of  people,  in  windows,  on  walks, 
stoops,  posts,  house-tops,  more  curious  than 
the  others — and  sharing  more  (we  believe,  in 
their  simple  souls,  in  the  feeling  proper  to  the 
occasion. — with  more  grief  for  the  dead,  and 
more  wonderment  for  the  living  Captains  and 
Colonels  in  their  cocked  hats  on  horseback. 

By  the  time  the  ceremony  has  returned  to 
the  Park,  the  heart  of  the  people  has  calmed, 
and  they  quietly  ebb  back  to  their  own  homes. 
They  have  had  their  holiday,  and  holiday  they 
will  and  must  have,  under  some  pretext  or 
another.  The  appointed  orator  recites  before 
a  great  multitude  the  Funeral  Eulogy — the 
lights  come  slowly  out  upon  the  darkness,  and 
all  again  is  peace — the  peace  of  Liberty  to 
the  living — the  peace  of  blest  Immortality,  let 
us  hope,  to  the  dead  I 


A  DIRECTOR  OF  PAGEANTS.       107 

For  the  further  ordering  of  these  popular 
displays,  does  a  new  officer,  not  in  our  present 
catalogue  of  city  magnates,  seem  needed  ? 

A  DIRECTOR  OF  PAGEANTS. 

Of  late  years,  the  passion  for  holidays  and 
holiday  shows  has  started  into  a  vigorous 
growth,  which  must  be  approved  of  as  a  re- 
lief to  the  monotonous  business-habits  of  the 
community.  With  the  impulsiveness  which 
urges  them  in  everything  they  engage  in,  our 
people  now  rush  as  eagerly  into  sight-seeing 
as  a  few  years  ago  they  hurried  the  other  way. 
There  is,  however,  unhappily,  a  want  of  tern 
perance  and  discretion  in  the  employment  of 
this  newly-awakened  energy,  which  robs  even 
enjoyment  of  half  its  beauty  and  enjoyability. 
Without  considering  the  when,  the  how,  the 
where,  our  citizens  at  one  time  celebrate  the 
Fourth  of  July,  for  example,  by  cramming 
themselves  in  churches  to  hear  anniversary 
orations,  then  by  cramming  themselves  into 


108  THE    PEN-AND-INK-  PANORAMA. 

booths  to  eat  roast  pig  and  imbibe  lemonade ; 
at  another  time  it's  all  steamboat  and  railroad 
car,  and  nobody  left  in  town  to  admire  the  mili- 
tary. So  with  regard  to  public  pageants. 
There  appears  to  be  no  method  nor  order  in 
these  enthusiasms.  The  displays  are  generally 
mere  swarms  or  medleys  of  people.  There  is 
neither  beginning  nor  end  to  the  procession. 
Odd  Fellows,  soldiers,  Common  Council  men, 
sailors,  students,  firemen,  societies  of  mechanics, 
societies  Hibernian  and  Italian,  consuls,  bishops, 
all  hurried  one  after  the  other  in  confused  suc- 
cession with  an  extraordinary  interspersion  of 
all  sorts  of  flags,  banners,  poles,  tressels,  badges, 
pyramidical  symbols,  and  crapes  of  every 
length,  quality,  and  character.  Instead  of 
being  harmonized  into  a  complete  whole,  every 
thing  and  every  body  seems  to  be  left  free  to 
consult  his  own  taste  or  no  taste ;  and  the  re- 
sult is,  that  the  pageants  of  the  city,  which 
might  have  proved  a  soothing  and  agreeable 
spectacle,  send  home  the  thousands  who  stand 


THE    SEMPSTRESS.  109 

for  three  hours  in  the  pelting  sun  watching  its 
progress,  weary  and  dissatisfied.  As  pageants 
of  this  kind  have  become  one  of  the  customs 
of  the  country,  we  think  no  better  provision 
could  be  made  for  their  successful  execution, 
than  the  appointment  of  some  man  of  taste  to 
their  Directorship.  A  reasonable  salary  al- 
lowed to  such  an  office  would  be  money  well 
spent. 


Let  us  leave  pageants  and  spectacles.  "Who 
is  this  little,  brisk,  tidy,  pretty-faced  figure 
that  glances  across  our  path,  before  we  plunge 
into  the  great  stream  of  the  Bowery  ? 


THE    SEMPSTRESS. 


Is  it  a  sin  to  be  young?  to  have  good  teeth  ? 
a  graceful  carriage  ?  intelligence,  and  ease,  if 
not  absolute  elegance  of  expression  ?  In  a 
word,  to  have  all  lady-like  qualities  of  youth, 


110  THE    PEN- AND  INK    PANORAMA. 

beauty,  and  person,  (except  a  hundred  dollar 
Cashmere,  and  a  rich  husband's  bank  account 
to  draw  upon  at  pleasure)  ?  Of  how  many  per- 
sons describable  like  this,  does  our  Christian 
reader  suppose  the  question  is  discussed  in  this 
Free  Land,  in  this  Eepublican  City,  every 
morning,  whether  she  shall  take  her  meals  with 
the  family  or  after  them  ?  "We  cannot  tell  him 
the  hundreds — they  may  even  count  them  by 
thousands.  And  in  how  many  is  the  question 
decided  against  the  young,  fair,  and  accom- 
plished beneficiary  ?  Three  out  of  every  four, 
we  will  venture  on  our  lives.  It  is  this  for  a 
woman  to  get  a  living  by  honest  handiwork  in 
America,  and  it  is  this  to  be  called  a  Semp- 
stress !  Now  we  would  like,  without  invidious 
hostilities  between  rich  and  poor,  to  ascertain 
where,  how,  and  how  efficiently  the  line  is 
drawn  by  which  the  laborer  is  separated  from 
her  mistress. 

Which  shall  beget  a  larger  soul — to  be  born 
the   pale   daughter   of  a  nabob,   talked   non- 


THE    SEMPSTRESS.  Ill 

sense  to  by  hireling  nurses  from  infancy,  con- 
ducted straight  from  the  parlor  to  the  fashion- 
able boarding-school,  (stopping  to  see  or  know 
nothing  of  humanity  or  nature  by  the  way,) 
there  shut  up  with  a  hundred  or  more  of  like- 
faced,  pale  creatures,  to  hear  the  twangling  of 
a  piano  for  an  hour,  the  parroting  of  French 
adverbs  for  another,  the  pirouetting  of  a  pair 
of  thin  French  legs  for  another ;  to  go  from 
this  at  eighteen  to  talk  to  coxcombs  and  drink 
light  wines  at  parties  till  midnight  or  two  next 
morning — or,  being  the  child  of  a  dusky, 
strong- working  mechanic,  talked  with  as  a 
thing  of  sense,  by  a  mother  who  must  use  her 
wits  to  bring  the  day  about;  to  be  pitched  in, 
head  foremost,  (not  to  speak  profanely,)  at  a 
Public  School,  among  several  hundred  bust- 
ling girls,  to  make  her  way  as  best  she  can,  in 
her  native  force  of  character;  to  be  put  to 
work,  and  to  count  how  much  it  comes  to  pei 
day  and  per  week,  at  sixteen  years,  when  she 
(fuits  school ;  to  buy  books  for  her  own  read- 


112  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

ing ;  to  live  on  all  her  holidays  in  the  open  air, 
in  a  pic-nic  on  Long  Island,  or  an  excursion 
down  the  Bay,  or  a  singing  anniversary  of  one 
of  the  churches,  of  which  she  is  a  director. 
Which  of  these  is  most  likely  to  be  a  woman  ? 
to  have  a  heart  and  soul  ?  an  intelligent  judg 
ment  ?  an  observant  eye  ?  We  know  very 
well  how  the  fashionable  young  lady,  coming 
of  age,  disposes  of  herself.  She  marries  a 
broken-down  foreign  Count,  and  in  about  ten 
years'  bitter  experience  has  "  all  the  nonsense 
taken  out  of  her;"  or,  if  she  escapes  that,  lives 
an  inanity,  and  begets  inanities  to  the  end  of 
time.  Let  us  look  a  little  more  closely  into 
the  career  of  our  Sempstress. 

The  Sempstress  generally  lives  in  some  two- 
story  wooden  tenement  in  East  Bowery,  (that 
is,  the  region  lying  on  the  eastern  side  of  that 
great  thoroughfare,)  with  her  mother,  aunt, 
grandmother,  or  sometimes  with  a  fellow  Semp- 
stress. She  has  a  room,  often  a  few  flowers  in 
pots  at  the  window,  a  colored  print  of  "  Paul 


THE    SEMPSTRESS.  113 

and  Virginia"  in  a  frame  against  the  wall,  and 
perhaps  a  bird — the  bird  rarely,  for  there  may 
be  no  one  to  look  after  him  during  the  day, 
while  she  is  absent  at  work.  She  subscribes 
to  one  of  the  Magazines  with  fashion-plates,  and 
often  invades  the  small  hours  after  her  return 
from  her  task,  hanging  in  breathless  suspense 
over  the  romantic  adventures  of  Sir  Philip  de 
Grey ;  or  weeping,  as  if  she  would  break  her 
heart,  over  the  loves  and  crosses  of  a  certain 
"William  Hamilton,  an  excellent  youth,  and 
Clara  Howard,  a  young  lady  of  peerless 
beauty.  We  state,  with  some  reluctance,  that 
our  noble-minded  Sempstress  has  a  rather  un- 
due admiration  of  the  roan  palfrey  which 
figures  freely  in  the  novels  of  Mr.  James. 
On  Sundays,  endowed  in  her  best  hat  and 
gown,  our  young  lady  makes  her  way  for  the 
nearest  Methodist  church — of  which,  nine  times 
out  of  ten,  she  is  a  member — and  there  her 
voice  is  heard  in  praise  and  thanksgiving 
among  all ;  for  she  is  not  a  little  proud  of  her 


114  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

voice,  and  she  is  not  ashamed,  like  the  tine 
lady,  to  be  heard  singing  aloud  in  the  presence 
of  her  Maker.  She  puts  silver  in  the  plate 
oftener  than  Dives. 

But  what  is  the  course  of  her  daily,  work-a- 
day  life  ?  In  the  morning  she  rises  betimes. 
If  she  works  for  the  down-town  shops,  she  pre- 
pares breakfast  and  dispatches  it  promptly.  It 
may  be  a  couple  of  eggs,  a  piece  of  fish,  and  a 
cup  of  coffee;  but  we'll  engage,  at  all  hazards, 
there's  a  pickle  somewhere  on  the  table.  She 
then  takes  from  the  great  heap  on  the  chair 
and  disposes  over  her  left  arm,  a  sufficient  pile 
of  pea-coats,  or  cheap  waistcoats,  or  summer 
pants,  or  whatever  the  goods  just  then  in  re- 
quest, to  break  the  back  of  a  small  mule. 
With  these  she  makes  for  the  Bowery,  ponder- 
ing as  she  goes  with  all  the  power  of  thought, 
a  most  important  question.  Whether,  firstly, 
she  can  afford  a  sixpence  in  an  omnibus  ride 
on  the  present  job  ?  Secondly,  whether  she 
shall  take  the  ride  down  or  up  ?  for  remember 


THE    SEMPSTRESS.  115 

she  is  to  come  back  freighted  with  an  equal 
weight  of  luggage  from  the  shop.  The  omni- 
bus is  coming — she  gives  it  a  glance — spies 
John  Harrison,  the  young  printer,  going  down 
to  work — and  that  settles  the  point.  If  she 
carries  down  no  work,  made  at  home,  she  may, 
being  a  cap-maker,  or  something  of  the  sort, 
be  seen  with  nothing  but  a  small  parcel,  (a  slice 
of  bread  and  meat,)  and  returning  there  is  a 
presumption  that  some  friendly  John  Harrison 
or  other,  will  providentially  appear  at  a  corner 
where  she  must  pass,  and  accompany  her  home. 
If  she  is  a  house-seamstress,  she  takes  it  a  little 
more  leisurely,  and  encumbers  herself  no  far- 
ther than  with  a  pair  of  scissors  and  a  thimble. 
Her  arrival  is  generally  the  cue  for  a  good 
deal  of  whispered  conversation  through  the 
house.  "  How  late  Miss  Smith  comes  to  work  ?." 
"  Half  the  day  is  gone  already  !"  "  We  shall 
make  a  precious  time  with  the  dress  at  this 
rate — it  will  never  be  ready  !"  It  being  taken 
for  granted,  invariably,  that  the   sempstress 


116  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

is  an  enormous  swindler,  and  that  her  showing 
herself  at  that  hour  is  a  deliberate  fraud.  The 
day's  work  over,  she  begins  to  make  a  motion 
for  departure,  by  gathering  up  the  odds  and 
ends,  sticking  the  needles  in  the  cushion, 
sheathing  her  scissors,  &c,  at  which  the  mis- 
tress alwTays  expresses  vast  wonder  and  aston- 
ishment. 

«  Why,  Miss  Smith,  it  isn't  anything  like 
dark  yet ;  you  can  work  a  good  bit  yet — at 
least  half  an  hour." 

"  It's  seven  o'clock,  by  my  watch  /" 
We  suppose  no  such  wonder — no  such  un- 
believing horror  was  ever  before  expressed  on 
human  countenance  as  showed  itself  the  first 
time  a  Sempstress  in  this  city  (it  is  something 
like  eight  years  ago,)  announced  this  sentiment 
and  confirmed  it  by  the  exhibition  of  a  real 
little,  bona  fide  gold  watch.  The  appeal  wTas 
acknowledged  by  all  the  upper  classes,  the 
very  first  circles  of  society,  to  be  the  most  sub- 
lime display  of  plebeian  effrontery  on  record. 


THE    SEMPSTRESS.  117 

The  Sempstresses,  however,  "  still  keep  it  up," 
— as  many  of  them,  at  least,  as  can  afford 
watches. 

About  the  time  her  bonnet  is  adjusted,  there 
is  as  fair  a  presumption  as  there  was  of  the 
appearance  of  John  Harrison  in  the  other 
case,  that  some  smart  young  cousin,  a  student- 
at-law,  clerk,  or  something  of  that  sort,  may  be 
at  the  door — and,  if  there's  moonlight,  so  much 
the  better.  In  either  case,  there  being  no  re- 
gular champion  at  hand,  it  may  happen  that 
one  of  those  lively  young  gentlemen,  (an  "  over- 
powerer,"  as  he  calls  himself  at  the  Restau- 
rants,) with  a  short  cane  at  his  teeth,  volun- 
teers his  services,  and  is  saluted  at  once  with 
a  blow  in  the  face,  perhaps,  or,  this  is  much 
more  artful,  is  allowed  to  dance  attendance  till 
they  come  abreast  of  some  good  strong  shop- 
lights  and  a  great  throng  of  people,  when  she 
announces,  in  a  bold  clear  voice,  "  You  had 
better  go  home,  you  insolent  puppy,  and  mind 
your  own  business." 


118  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

It  does  sometimes  happen,  though  this  is 
very  rarely  the  case,  that  some  worthy  young 
gentleman  of  an  honest  disposition  is  taken 
with  her  beauty,  and  accosting  her  with  the 
distance  and  reserve  which  softens  the  impro- 
priety of  a  street  introduction,  an  acquaintance 
ensues;  and  we  have  known  happy  matches 
grow  out  of  these  chance-encounters.  We  can- 
not regard  them  as  strictly  cannonical;  although 
if  angels  will  come  in  this  guise,  may  we  not 
give  them  welcome  ? 

Encompassed  with  all  this  armor  of  proof, 
we  can  imagine  another  catastrophe.  Let  us 
consider  for  a  moment  the  other  side  of  the 
picture. 

Suppose  on  some  dreary,  weary  night,  the 
down-town  worker  for  the  shops,  is  making 
her  way  home  on  foot,  (without  even  the  small 
sixpence  for  the  omnibus,)  trade  not  having 
prospered  with  her,  or  her  little  week's  earn- 
ings not  forthcoming ;  in  faded  frock,  with 
bonnet  three  fashions  old,  and  altogether,  an 


THE    SEMPSTRESS.  119 

object  of  pity  to  look  on.  She  hears  a  voice 
trilling,  cheerily,  and  casting  her  eye  up,  espies 
a  "  young  lady"  at  the  height  of  fashion  (a  lit- 
tle beyond  it,)  in  her  dress,  jewels  on  her  hand, 
a  chain  about  her  neck,  the  gaze  of  all  the 
people  as  she  makes  her  way  along.  What 
wonder  if  for  a  moment  the  poor  plodding 
sempstress  falters  in  her  course  :  if  now  and 
then  one  drops  over  into  the  abyss.  Her 
native  love  of  virtue  was  strong,  it  was  enforced 
by  good  example  and  proper  habits — but  when 
the  pressure  of  necessity  passes  a  certain  limit, 
there  are  some  in  all  societies  who  will  yield. 
Let  us  not,  therefore,  judge  harshly  of  our  fel- 
low-creatures. It  is  often  the  chance  turning 
of  a  street  corner  which  determines  a  career 
of  virtue  or  vice.  We  are  better  in  garb  than 
our  neighbors,  but  He  who  searches  beneath 
all  disguises,  will  discern,  under  the  plain  attire 
of  the  poor  girl,  who  plods  her  weary  way 
along  the  city  street  at  night  fall,  a  spirit,  noble, 
just,  honorable,  and  struggling  gallantly  against 
manifold  enemies  and  temptations. 


120 


THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 


As  we  are  engaged  in  sight-seeing,  which 
is  regarded  by  certain  very  shrewd  and  long- 
headed persons,  as  a  sheer  waste  of  time,  you 
must  allow  me  to  stop  the  panorama  a  moment 
to  say  a  word  or  two  on 

ABSURD  CALCULATIONS. 

Every  now  and  then — and  at  pretty  regular 
intervals — we  come  in  the  newspapers,  upon 
an  elaborate  table,  making  known  to  us  the 
immense  sum  we  might  realize  by  foregoing 
cigars  and  tobacco,  or  mint  juleps,  or  theatres, 
or  something  else  in  the  small  expenditure 
line.  In  other  words,  we  are  told  if  we  should 
lay  by  sixpence  a  day,  and  put  it  out  at  inter- 
est for  forty  years,  we  might  come  into  posses- 
sion, at  the  time  we  were  about  sixty  or  seventy 
years  old,  of  some  twenty  or  thirty  thousand 
dollars.  This  is  certainly  a  very  agreeable 
prospect  for  enterprizing  young  men — but  it 
has  one  or  two  little  drawbacks  worth  noticing. 
In  the  first  place,  the  little  problem  we  refer 


ABSURD    CALCULATIONS.  12 1 

to,  requires  for  a  successful  solution,  that  the 
sixpence  aforesaid  should  be  invested  at  com- 
pound interest.  Now,  we  are  not  acquainted 
with  any  bank,  broker,  or  other  corporation,  or 
gentlemen  in  the  money  business,  who  have 
made  arrangements  to  take  sums  of  that 
amount  on  deposit.  If  we  could  find  a  stock 
jobber  of  an  extraordinary  imagination — a  little 
hard  up  for  a  drink — we  might  perhaps  persuade 
him  to  accept  a  loan  of  that  amount  on  deposit, 
but  how  it  is  to  be  effected  in  the  ordinary 
course  of  dealing  we  are  not  sufficiently  fami 
liar  with  the  market  to  see  just  at  the  present 
time.  In  the  second  place  the  tables  in  ques- 
tion (so  accurately  prepared)  go  upon  the  in- 
genious supposition  that  man  is  especially  con- 
structed for  a  six-penny  saving  machine,  and 
that  the  gratification  of  his  natural  functions  is 
a  foolish  and  idle  perversion  of  the  original 
design.  To  save  sixpence  a  day  it  is  taken  for 
granted  is  the  sole  end  and  purpose  of  his  being. 
If  he  had  been  formed  of  wood,  cast  iron,  or 


122  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

sheet  tin,  like  a  child's  money-box,  this  would 
be  an  exceedingly  plausible  theory — but  as  he 
happens  to  have  a  heart,  a  pulse,  a  tongue,  and 
two  or  three  other  lively  appliances,  he  is  very 
apt  to  forget  the  necessity  of  laying  by  sixpence 
a  day,  and  clapping  an  extinguisher  on  all  his 
faculties  and  enjoyments,  while  the  investment 
is  accumulating  at  compound  interest,  in  some 
imaginary  and  impossible  bank. 

Were  we  disposed  to  deal  further  with  our 
profound  and  far-seeing  table-makers,  we  should 
humbly  suggest  that  some  men  would  like  to 
have  a  little  return  for  their  economy  some 
time  this  side  of  seventy,  when  we  would  sup- 
pose, according  to  the  Psalmist's  computation, 
that  most  promissory  personal  notes  drawn 
upon  this  world,  are  very  likely  to  run  out. 
To  have  twenty  thousand  dollars  just  when 
you  don't  want  it  is  neither  mercantile  nor  reli- 
gious, nor  even  plain  common  sense;  it  is  good 
husbandry  neither  for  the  present  nor  the  next 
world.     Thrift  is  very  well  in  its  way ;  with. 


ABSURD    CALCULATIONS.  123 

out  economy  of  some  kind  or  other,  no  man 
can  make  sure  of  a  day's  peace  or  happiness ; 
but  vague  and  impracticable  propositions  for 
saving,  like  these  oft  repeated  calculations  of 
the  newspapers,  are  likely  to  bring  discredit  on 
everything  in  the  name  of  economy.  By  pre- 
senting impossible  and  unbusiness-like  state- 
ments, they  discourage  the  young  from  the 
very  idea  of  prudence,  and  drive  them  abroad 
into  a  still  freer  indulgence  in  the  very  ex- 
penses they  are  meant  to  warn  them  from. 
Figures  (as  a  great  philosopher  once  said)  do 
sometimes  make  awful  blunders. 


And  now  that  we  are  assured  we  are  losing 
no  money  by  it,  let  us  go  on  with  the  show. 
After  a  pretty  long  journey  through  many 
scenes  and  sights,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  we 
have  reached 


124  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

THE  BOWERY. 

When  Captain  John  Smith  sailed  up  James's 
Eiver  in  the  early  day  of  Virginia,  while  it  was 
a  new  country,  his  heart  leaped  within  him  at 
the  sight  of  the  rich  bottom-lands,  the  huge 
green  trees,  the  clear,  deep  waters ;  but  what 
touched  him  most  was  the  vast  abundance  and 
variety  of  game  flying  about.  The  writer,  the 
sketcher  of  men  and  things,  when  he  enters 
the  mouth  of  the  great  Bowery,  at  Chatham- 
Square,  is  similarly  affected.  He  is  at  the 
entrance  of  the  greatest  street  on  the  Continent, 
the  most  characteristic,  the  most  American, 
the  most  peculiar:  with  all  sorts  of  game, 
plenty  of  high  grass,  so  to  speak,  deep  water, 
and  heavy  timber  before  him.  He  cannot  turn 
his  pen  in  any  direction,  without  bringing  down 
some  rare  beast  or  strange  wild  fowl.  At  the 
first  step  he  has  the  Mastodon,  (the  largest  of 
known  creatures,)  exhibited  in  a  transparency 
by  Dr.  Beach,  with   music  in  the  balcony  ex- 


THE    BOWERY.  125 

tensively  patronized  and  highly  approved  of  by 
crowded  audiences  along  the  sidewalk.  Seeing 
how  the  Hat  stores  swarm  already,  one  would 
think  these  Boweryites  were  a  many-headed 
race — something  like  the  Anthropophagi,  with 
a  difference — and  wore  three  hats  (as  certain 
gentlemen  ride  three  horses,)  apiece.  Immor- 
tal Charlotte  Temple,  and  that  profligate  Bri- 
tish officer — this  little  yellow  house  under  the 
tree  at  the  corner  was  the  scene  of  all  that !  And 
now  we  have  the  North  American  Hotel,  with 
the  ragged  wooden  boy  a-top,  (a  full  length  of 
the  founder  as  he  appeared  in  his  early  for- 
tunes,) and  in  its  doorways,  clustering  like  bees 
in  midsummer,  the  circus-riders,  in  highly 
colored  cravats,  who  perform  at  night  over  the 
way;  and  standing  about  the  neighboring 
tavern-steps,  an  infinite  variety  of  young  men, 
all  well-dressed,  with  coats  of  a  particular  cut, 
shiny  hair,  and  a  peculiar  glazed  look  about 
the  eye.  What  is  the  business  or  calling  of 
these  young  men  ?    No  mortal  man  has  been 


126  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

able  to  discover!  They  are  not  connected 
with  the  Bowery  Theatre  next  door,  nor  the 
Amphitheatre  over  the  way  even  ;  nor  with  the 
taverns  at  their  back.  And  yet  they  are  al- 
ways standing  along  these  stoops  day  after  day, 
night  after  night,  the  supply  never  gives  out — 
steady,  constant  as  the  sun  and  stars,  they  come 
out  upon  the  face  of  daylight  and  darkness. 

We  begin  now  to  appreciate  how  miscella- 
neous a  world  the  Bowery  is,  for  at  every  step 
We  have  taken,  a  new  business,  a  new  kind  of 
shop  and  traffic  has  disclosed  itself:  saddleries, 
stove-shops,  poulterer's  stands,  stage  offices, 
clothiers,  grocers,  druggists,  jewelers,  candy 
and  peanut  stands,  four-cent  boards,  &c.  We 
have  counted  no  less  than  two  hundred  and 
forty  distinct  trades  carried  on  in  the  line  of 
the  Bowery.  What  is  not  to  be  had  and  seen 
there,  can  be  found  nowhere.  As  a  general, 
an  almost  universal  rule,  business  in  the  Bow. 
ery  is  done  on  a  small  scale,  with  more  of  an 
eye  to  comfort  than  splendor.     There  are  no 


THE    BOWERY.  127 

great  plate-glass  windows,  no  gorgeous  jewel- 
er's shops,  no  overpowering  furniture  establish- 
ments. The  only  attempts  at  magnificence — 
and  these  do  not  partake  of  the  brilliant — are 
in  sundry  clothing  emporiums,  stacked  high  to 
the  very  ceiling,  and  hung  thick  along  the  shop 
fronts  with  great  Bowery  overcoats,  blazing 
waistcoats,  and  everlasting  pants — all  con- 
structed as  for  a  race  of  big-limbed,  and  broad- 
chested  giants.  Among  all  the  numberless 
stores  and  ware-rooms  of  that  street,  we  can- 
not remember  a  single  undertaker's  shop  or 
coffin -warehouse  in  its  whole  length.  Life  is 
too  cheerful  and  full-flushed  in  that  street  to  al- 
low of  such  an  impertinence.  It  inclines,  on  the 
contrary,  to  excess  of  enjoyment  and  animal 
indulgences,  and  keeps  itself  in  high  tone  with 
perpetual  raw  oysters  and  stiff  smashes.  We 
state  from  actual  count,  that  there  are  no  less 
than  twenty-seven  oyster-houses  and  fifty-two 
taverns  in  the  Bowery — enough  to  keep  the 
street  at  fever-heat  through  the  whole  twenty- 


128  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

four  hours.  By  a  wise  provision  of  nature, 
there  is  no  end  to  the  sights  to  be  seen  in  this 
Bowery  thoroughfare ;  it  is  a  perpetual  kale- 
idoscope :  from  morning  till  night  something 
rare  and  strange  constantly  starting  up.  It  is 
to  the  study  of  what  passes  in  the  street  that 
the  Boweryites  are  mainly  indebted  for  what 
they  get  of  education.  They  trouble  them- 
selves very  little  with  gilt-edged  annuals,  Greek 
Dictionaries,  or  McCulloch  on  Commerce. 
They  take  things  in  the  lump  ;  a  pound  of 
sugar  costs  at  wholesale  six  cents,  Mr.  Bow- 
ery retails  it  at  eight,  and  makes  a  couple  of 
cents  profit.  That  he  understands.  A  man 
presents  himself  with  a  broken  nose,  low  fore- 
head, and  a  sinister  cast  in  his  eye ;  Mrs.  Bow- 
ery knows  him  to  be  a  villain,  (although  she 
has  never  made  the  acquaintance  of  Iago,)  and 
keeps  her  grown-up  daughters  out  of  the  way 
accordingly.  In  their  personal  deportment, 
the  Bowery  people  are  perfectly  independent — 
every  man  for  himself.     You  needn't  trouble 


THE    BOWERY.  129 

yourself  to  put  a  coat  on  when  you  go  into 
that  street,  if  it  is  not  agreeable  ;  no  one  will 
cut  you  for  that  breach  of  etiquette.  They 
are  as  near  to  a  primitive  state,  as  people  in  a 
great  city  can  be,  preserving  their  original 
traits  pretty  much  as  they  came  from  the  hand 
of  Nature.  In  their  unsophisticated  curiosity 
about  sights,  for  example,  the  last  monkey  that 
comes  into  the  street  excites  as  vivid  attention 
as  the  first.  Monkeys  are  monkeys  in  the  Bow- 
ery, and  have  a  respect  and  consideration  be- 
stowed on  them  there,  far  beyond  any  other 
part  of  the  city,  some  of  the  remoter  regions 
of  the  extreme  Eastern  side  alone  excepted. 

Some  have  expressed  a  belief  that  the  people 
of  that  whole  section  of  the  city  lying  east  of 
Broadway  are  composed  of  different  material 
from  the  settlers  about  Fifth  Avenue  and 
Union  Square ;  that  they  are  an  essentially 
distinct  and  inferior  race.  This  is  the  doctrine 
I  believe,  taught  in  many  of  the  fashionable 
academies,  in  the  best  dancing-schools,  and  in 


130  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

both  our  Collegiate  Institutions.  One  unmis- 
takeable  evidence  that  they  are  a  somewhat 
degraded  caste  is,  that  they  pay  their  debts 
much  more  regularly  than  the  high-toned 
people  of  the  Western  quarter.  We  do  not 
know  whether  this  distinction,  in  regard  to  the 
two  sides  of  the  town,  is  laid  down  in  the  new 
geographies  or  marked  in  the  city  maps ;  but 
we  are  confident  that  there  are  thousands  in  the 
western  part  of  the  city  (grown-up  men  and 
women,)  who  couldn't  find  their  way  to  the 
Bowery  without  a  guide. 

Is  Human  Life,  take  it  altogether,  happiest 
in  Broadway  or  the  Bowery  ?  on  the  Aristo- 
cratic or  Democratic  side  of  New  York  ?  In 
the  one  it's  short-cake — substantial,  but  per- 
haps a  little  lumpish  ;  in  the  other,  fancy  tea- 
cake,  with  all  sorts  of  caraway-seed  and  dainty 
frost-work — with  an  inclination,  perhaps,  to 
engender  flatulency.  The  one  looks  after  the 
useful — the  other  the  ornamental.  The  one  is 
especially  careful  to  fill  his  belly — the  other  to 


THE    BOWERY.  131 

illuminate  his  back.  Light  goods,  of  more 
show  than  substance,  are  for  Broadway  wear 
— heavy,  with  a  strong  tendency  to  coarseness 
for  the  Bowery.  The  one  thinks  more  of  the 
homely  virtues — the  other  of  the  elegant  ac- 
complishments. And  yet  we  would  not  take 
it  upon  our  consciences  to  affirm  that  the  road 
to  Heaven  lies  straighter  through  the  Bowery 
than  Broadway — that  the  workman's  tin-kettle 
is  a  better  provision  for  the  journey  than  the 
filagree  reticule  of  the  lady  of  fashion.  While 
in  Broadway,  (to  rest  a  moment  there,)  the 
apparel  is  notable  for  its  rieatness  and  careful 
arrangement,  the  people  of  the  Bowery  have, 
all  of  them,  an  appearance  as  if  they  had  got 
up  of  a  sudden  and  dressed  in  a  hurry — -with 
the  exception,  now  and  then,  of  a  notability 
who  is  known  as  a  Bowery  dandy.  The  style 
of  this  gentleman's  costume  is  startling  and  ex- 
traordinary. Blazing  colors — -stark-sl  tring 
blue  for  coat,  brick  red  for  waistcoat,  bre  >ehes 
with   a  portentous   green  stripe,  hat   brushed 


132  THE    PEN-AND-INK  PANORAMA. 

up  to  the  highest  gloss,  shiny  as  a  new  kettle — 
he  rolls  down  the  Bowery  a  perfect  Meteor, 
before  whose  slightest  scintillation  a  Broadway 
exquisite  would  dwindle  to  undistinguishable 
nothingness.  The  Broadway  dandy  dresses 
snug  and  small,  reducing  his  person  by  stays 
and  pulleys,  close-fitting  coats,  pants,  vests, 
and  gloves.  The  Bowery  dandy  would  im- 
press you  with  an  idea  of  largeness,  strength ; 
he  swells  his  chest,  makes  broad  the  brim  of 
his  hat,  the  skirts  of  his  coat — cuts  close  his 
hair,  which  conveys  a  notion  of  vigor — and  as 
for  gloves,  his  muscular,  broad,  brown  hand 
speaks  for  itself — he  has  never  been  known  to 
wear  them.  You  see  no  children  in  Broadway 
— the  little,  tricked  out  things  in  fringed  panta 
lettes,  fantoccin  coats,  and  South  American 
castors,  are  scarcely  to  be  reckoned  children  : 
in  the  Bowery  they  swarm  and  multiply — the 
real  bare-legged  bread  and  butter-eaters  ;  they 
pour  down  from  up  above,  flood  in  from  the 
side  streets — seem  to  spring,  mushroom  fashion, 


THE    BOWERY.  133 

out  of  the  very  ground.  On  the  occasion  of  a 
public  procession  or  entree,  there  is  no  end  to 
them  ;  for,  in  this  street,  processions  have  a 
heartier  acknowledgment  and  reception— here, 
as  in  ancient  Rome,  on  the  transit  of  a  great 
man,  (they  don't  always  insist  on  the  first  order 
of  greatness  either,)  the  democracy  mount  the 
awning-posts,  windows,  roofs— yea,  to  the  very 
chimney-tops  with  their  children  in  their  arms, 

Does  not  the  Bowery,  you  ask,  grow  torpid 
;md  lethargic  under  so  great  a  burden  of  sight- 
seeing as  you  describe  ?  Indifferent — -so  that, 
at  last,  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible  to  move 
or  startle  it,  by  any  exhibition,  however  pro- 
digious ? 

We  confess  there  is  something  in  this.  But 
if  we  wrere  asked  what  we  had  known  to  affect 
it  most  strongly — what  had  wrought  it  in  its 
whole  length  to  the  highest  pitch  of  attention 
and  wonder  ?  We  should  unhesitatingly  men- 
tion the  Mammoth  Ox,  Daniel  Lambert,  which 
came  in  from  West  Farms,  in  the  year  '40,  we 


134  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

think  it  was.  No  !  We  should  make  an  ex* 
ception  in  behalf  of  the  Tiger,  which,  escaping 
from  the  old  Menagerie  at  94,  made  its  appear- 
ance in  the  street  one  autumn  morning,  and 
went  about  the  better  part  of  the  day,  trying 
on  hats,  putting  his  nose  in  divers  sugar  barrels, 
and  glaring  at  small  fat  children,  in  good  case, 
in  second-story  windows.  The  business  occu- 
pied the  attention  of  the  Bowery  for  better 
than  a  fortnight. 

The  Bowery  is  the  main  thoroughfare  for 
the  country-stages,  and  in  spite  of  the  rise  and 
progress  of  railroads,  a  few  of  the  old  Whips 
are  to  be  found  lingering  around  the  West- 
chester County  Hotel,  early  in  the  morning. 
But  at  this  hour,  the  street  is  mainly  tilled  with 
porters  making  for  the  down-town  stores,  then 
after  them  clerks  ;  then  the  sempstresses  and 
binder's  girls.  All  its  ordinary  and  lawful 
uses  being  disposed  of,  we  find  it  quite  a  com- 
mon thing,  in  our  opinion  very  reprehensible, 
for  certain  of  our  great  nobs  who   have  a  sin- 


THE    BOWERY.  135 

cere  respect  for  a  shilling-piece,  and  who  oc- 
cupy some  of  the  best  houses  in  Broadway  and 
the  fashionable  squares,  to  make  a  convenience 
of  the  Bowery  when  they  have  a  small  bundle  to 
carry  home.  They  can  fetch  and  carry  here  with 
impunity,  at  a  very  small  risk  of  encountering 
their  fashionable  friends.  A  better  class,  but 
of  the  same  kidney — men  of  a  benevolent  turn, 
but  not  indifferent  to  appearances,  transport 
pine-apples  and  other  little  nick-nacks  to  their 
families  in  this  manner,  by  hand,  through  the 
Bowery.  We  should  not  be  surprised  if  the 
residenters  one  day  rose  against  this  abuse  of 
their  street. 

Another  practice,  allowable  perhaps  to  the 
infirmity  of  human  nature ;  down-town  men, 
whose  residences  lie  in  the  West,  in  Waverly- 
Place  and  thereabouts,  on  the  laying  over  of 
their  first  note  at  the  bank,  as  a  common  thing- 
make  their  way  home  for  that  afternoon,  (though 
altogether  out  of  their  way,)  through  the  Bow- 
ery.    By  this  means,  and  it  is  we  suppose  a 


136  THE   PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

pardonable  weakness,  they  avoid  not  the  face 
of  men,  but  the  face  of  those  men  whose  good 
opinion  is  their  life-breath.  In  the  first  flush 
of  misfortune  they  dare  not  encounter  them. 
In  truth  the  Bowery  is  very  much  haunted  by 
broken  merchants,  men  in  bad  hats,  gentlemen 
under  indictment  at  the  Sessions ;  the  smaller 
class  of  reporters  and  scribblers  sometimes 
take  their  "  drinks"  in  the  Bowery.  If  bad 
luck,  in  any  shape  is  on  you,  you  may  walk  the 
Bowery  with  safety ;  nobody  will  pry  into 
your  troubles,  or  think  any  the  less  of  you  for 
a  coat  out  at  elbows.  If  you're  just  out  of 
prison  they'll  forgive  you.  In  a  word,  it's  the 
only  noble-spirited  and  Christian  street  in  New 
York! 


And  who  is  this  that  swaggers  into  the  pic- 
ture with  a  cock  of  the  hat  and  an  independent 
roll  of  the  shoulders  ?    This,  ladies  and  gentle 


THE  UPROARIOUS  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN.   137 

men,  is  a  very  worthy  native  of  this  region, 
and,  therefore,  I  propose  to  make  known  to 
you  something  of  the  habits  of 

THE  UPROARIOUS  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN. 

The  uproarious  young  gentleman  generally 
enters  a  room  with  a  "  Ha  !  ha  !  my  lads — how 
are  ye  I"  shakes  hands  boisterously  all  round, 
and  manages  to  introduce  something  into  each 
one  of  his  salutations  that  shall,  at  least,  re- 
motely, justify  a  roaring  burst  of  laughter.  If 
a  new  book  is  lying  on  your  table,  or  a  present 
from  a  friend  in  China,  he  clutches  it  up  with 
tremendous  eagerness  and  enthusiasm,  and  ex- 
claims, "  Hallo  !  what  have  you  got  here !" 
The  uproarious  young  gentleman  is  good-look- 
ing, with  fat,  burly  countenance,  and  a  pair  of 
commanding  whiskers.  He  is  sometimes  a 
stout  clerk  in  a  jobbing-house,  oftener  a  junior 
partner  in  a  wholesale  grocery,  and  still  more 
frequently  a  respectable  young  butcher  with 
big  arms  and  broad  shoulders,  in  a  blue  coat, 


138  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA 

with  a  silk  hat  with  a  crape  wound  about  its 
base,  and  who  is  known  familiarly  as  a  "  Bow- 
ery Boy  !" 

Uproarious  young  gentlemen  are  not,  how- 
ever, confined  to  these  three  interesting  classes 
of  society,  but  are  found  sprinkled  in  every 
company,  less  rarely,  it  is  true,  as  you  ascend 
the  scale.  To  be  overtaken  in  the  street  by  an 
uproarious  young  gentleman  cannot  be  con- 
sidered the  most  delightful  event  in  one's  life  ■ 
he  invariably  slaps  you  on  the  back,  at  the  same 
time  bawling  in  your  ear,  "  Ah  !  my  hearty, 
which  way  ?"  in  such  a  manner,  as  if  you  are 
a  non  resident  or  standing  bail  for  an  indicted 
gentleman  who  has  fled  the  county,  to  bring 
your  heart  into  your  mouth.  The  number  of 
shoulders  the  uproarious  young  gentleman  has 
dislocated  in  the  most  public  manner,  cannot 
be  counted,  and  it  would  seem  that  he  should 
be  followed  as  regularly  by  a  surgeon  with  his 
box  of  instruments  and  a  roll  of  bandages,  as 
if  he  were  a  shark  or  a  chain-shot.     The  chief 


THE  UPROARIOUS  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN.   139 

possession  of  this  lusty  young  gentleman  is 
a  pair  of  brass  hinged  lungs,  which  are  never 
out  of  repair,  and  which  he  keeps  in  fine  order 
by  constant  exercise  at  public  places,  by  cry- 
ing "  Hey  I  Hey  !M  in  a  sharp,  fife-like  key  at 
political  meetings,  to  set  the  cheerers  on ;  by 
joining  a  boat-club  and  practising  horrid  boat- 
songs  on  the  bay,  in  express  violation  of  the 
law  against  "  disturbing  the  quiet  of  our 
waters  ;'.'  and  more  particularly  by  going  home 
late  at  night,  and  bursting  out  directly  under 
the  windows  of  peaceful  citizens,  in  a  voice 
which  shoots  sheer  perpendicular  up  the  side 
of  the  house  some  sixty  feet,  like  a  fizzing  sig- 
nal rocket. 

The  uproarious  young  gentleman  is  conspic- 
uous at  fires,  and  may  be  seen  dashing  about 
in  a  box  coat,  with  a  red  worsted  comforter 
about  his  neck,  shouting,  "  Play  this  way — 
more  hose — and  two  or  three  boys  !"  By  these 
means  he  keeps  himself  in  a  very  pleasurable 
state  of  excitement,  and  impresses  the  looker- 


140   THE  UPROARIOUS  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN, 

on  with  the  idea  that  he  is  an  amazingly  pub- 
lic spirited  individual  and  active  young  man. 

If  he  be  at  a  party  among  "  pleasant  sort  o' 
people  that  use  ingrain  carpets,  and  don't  mind 
a  little  fun  !"  and  a  break-down  jig  is  sugges- 
ted to  wind  up  the  evening  with,  the  discreet 
housewife  slips  into  the  basement  immediately 
under  the  parlor  where  the  uproarious  young 
gentleman  is  going  through  his  paces,  and 
clears  the  glasses  and  light  crockery  from  the 
table  to  prevent  breakage,  if  the  uproarious 
young  gentleman  should  think  proper,  in  the 
progress  of  his  jig,  to  work  his  way  through 
the  upper  floor ! 

This  uproarious  young  gentleman  appears 
to  have  but  one  grand  object  in  life — and  that 
is  to  make  as  much  noise  and  pother  as  he  con- 
veniently can.  In  furtherance  of  this  laudable 
design,  he  pulls  your  door-bell  as  if  he  were 
tugging  at  the  great  Tom  of  Moscow;  his 
knock  is  thunder  itself ;  and  his  cheers  at  the 
theatre  and  bravos  at  the  opera,  a  series  of  ex- 


THE  UPROARIOUS  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN.   141 

plosions  which  break  from  him  as  if,  like  voices 
from  tombs  and  caverns  of  the  earth,  they 
would  rend  his  body  to  obtain  an  utterance. 
In  ice-cream  saloons  he  thumps  the  floor  of  the 
box  as  if  a  convention  of  auctioneers  were 
there  assembled  practising  their  hammers  pre- 
paratory to  an  exposure  of  nothing  less  than 
the  entire  planetary  system  to  public  sale,  and 
at  the  hotel  table,  he  lifts  his  voice  in  his  re- 
peated calls  to  the  waiter,  as  if  he  thought  that 
useful  white  or  colored  gentleman,  had  planted 
himself  on  the  extreme  point  of  Cape  Magellan 
or  Cape  Horn,  as  far  out  of  hearing  as  possi- 
ble. There  is,  be  it  known,  another  species  of 
the  genus  uproarious  young  gentleman,  which 
may  be  styled  the  zoological  young  gen- 
tleman, and  whose  uproar  consists  mainly  of 
admirable  offhand  imitations  of  various  mem- 
bers of  the  animal  creation,  for  whom  the  said 
gentleman  entertains  the  warmest  sympathy 
and  most  profound  admiration.  For  instance  : 
when  a  party  is  breaking  up,  and  the  young 


142  THE    PEN-AND-TNX    PANORAMA. 

ladies  are  on  the  stairs  with  their  hoods  and 
shawls  on,  descending  into  the  hall,  the  zoolog- 
ical young  gentleman  who  is  in  their  very 
midst,  suddenly,  and  to  the  great  trepidation 
of  the  fair  creatures  by  whom  he  is  surrounded, 
breaks  into  a  compound  noise,  part  screech, 
part  hoot,  in  imitation  of  his  friend  the  owl — 
that  wonderful  bird  having  just  such  a  round 
bush  head,  and  just  such  a  pair  of  round  star- 
ing eyes  as  this  uproarious  young  gentleman 
himself.  Shortly  after,  when  they  are  standing 
on  the  door-steps,  bidding  their  hostess  good 
night,  the  zoological  gentleman  flutters  his 
arms  rapidly  against  his  sides,  and  utters  a 
clear,  vocal  cock-a-doodle-doo,  in  token  of  his 
having  engaged  to  wait  upon  the  pretty  young 
lady  in  blue  eyes  and  white  satin,  in  the  very 
teeth  of  a  desperate  young  man  in  black  whis- 
kers and  six  dollar  beaver  hat.  The  zoological 
young  gentleman  also  gives  you  the  lion  with 
a  sore  throat ;  a  quail  in  a  rye  stubble  ;  and,  tc 
amuse   a   select  company   collected   at   Mrs. 


THE  UPROARIOUS  YOUNG  GENTLEMAN.   143 

Twirk's,  a  market  sloop  with  its  live  stock  en- 
tire, pigs,  poultry,  boatswain,  milch-cow  and 
captain.  This  species  of  the  uproarious  young 
gentleman,  natural  historians  observe  is  be- 
coming more  scarce  every  year.  Tight  neck- 
stocks  and  a  rigid  system  of  police,  are  un- 
favorable to  the  development  of  his  peculiar 
kind  of  talent  I 


Our  boisterous  gentleman  is  suddenly  extin- 
guished by  a  cloud.  Ah,  Trade!  Trade  !  my 
friends,  what  a  hold  it  has  upon  this  great  com- 
mercial emporium  ?  What  are  these  lying  in 
this  shop-window,  like  so  many  cards  for  a 
benefit-night  at  the  Bowery  Theatre,  with  a 
placard  announcing 

"TICKETS  FOR  GREENWOOD." 

If  the  faces  of  the  present  generation  of 
men  bear  any  impress  of  their  acts,  they  should 
to  a  superior  being  or  a  mortal  observer  not 


141  THE    FEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA, 

faring  in  their  spirit,  look  terrible  and  hid- 
eous. Calmly  separating  ourselves  from  the 
general  movement  of  the  times  in  certain 
directions — it  seems  to  us  as  if  the  ancient 
faith,  reverence,  devotion,  and  all  conscious- 
ness of  the  sanctity  of  life  had  utterly  died 
out:  that  all  modern  civilization  lay  loosely 
upon  the  surface  :  that  our  earthly  pilgrimage 
is  in  truth  as  in  metaphor,  a  mere  day's  jour- 
ney, a  hurried  scamper,  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave ;  and  that  all  were  pressing  to  crowd 
the  vehicle  of  swiftest  conveyance.  How  can 
we  doubt  that  it  is  so  regarded  when  we  find 
in  shop-windows  on  the  common  highway  of 
our  city — displayed  and  advertised  (as  if  they 
wrere  the  mere  tokens  of  an  ordinary  excur- 
sion)— passes  to  a  burial-place — "  Tickets  for 
Greenwood."  There  was  a  time,  and  not  very 
far  distant,  when  silence  was  the  usher  to  that 
last  sacred  abode;  when  from  the  shade] 
house  the  grievous  pageant  wound  sadly  for- 
ward to  the  church  aisle  and  the  lonely  vault; 


(<  TICKETS    FOR    GREENWOOD."  145 

to  the  old  country  homestead ;  to  the  retired 
family  burial-place  under  the  green  tree;  and 
in  consecrated  earth  the  beloved  remains  were 
laid  away,  for  ever  sequestered  in  their  resting- 
place  as  in  the  affections ;  memorable  to  grief 
and  kinship — in  all  the  agitations  and  chances 
of  the  after-hours.  But  now — alas  !  alas  !  the 
change — hostile  systems  contend  for  our  living 
bodies,  and  we  are  buried  by  corporations. 
We  live  in  mobs,  and  mob-like  we  throng  to 
the  cemetery  :  as  if  we  feared  to  be  alone.  In 
daily  proclamations  :  in  circulars,  and  experi- 
mental trips,  we  are  invited  to  the  newly- 
opened  grounds,  as  to  a  ball  or  other  festive 
entertainment.  We  take  stock  in  graveyards 
as  we  do  in  banks  and  railway  schemes.  Graves 
are  bought  by  the  lot  at  a  discount :  so  much 
off,  if  several  are  taken  at  a  time.  We  are 
stimulated  to  secure  the  best  places,  the  choice 
spots,  as  if  they  were  premium  benches  at  a 
concert,  or  private  boxes  at  the  opera.  Oh, 
that  we  have  come  to  live  in  such  an  age  !  No 


146  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

wonder — no  wonder — the  poets  are  dead  ! 
That  men  believe  they  know  not  what;  that 
they  doubt  everything ;  and  that  they  would 
regulate  this  great  world,  with  its  mountains 
and  waters,  as  with  a  screw  and  lever. 

It  is  in  Mr.  Berryman  that  our  tragi-comic 
era  finds  its  most  perfect  representative  and 
development :  Mr.  Berryman,  who,  in  his  one 
person,  exercises  the  double  function  of  Sexton 
of  the  Fashionable  Church  and  Manager  of 
Fashionable  Parties  :  Berryman  who  wields  in 
one  hand  a  silver  ladle  to  serve  oysters,  in  the 
other  a  shovel  to  dig  a  pit  for  the  shells  :  Ber- 
ryman who  dismisses,  with  Napoleonic  rapid- 
ity, the  coaches  of  a  grand  re-union  in  Fifth 
Avenue  on  a  Saturday  evening,  that  he  may 
rally,  in  a  few  hours  of  interval,  at  the  opening 
of  the  rectorate  on  Sunday  morning :  Berry- 
man who,  like  the  late  Charles  Mathews, 
groans  on  one  side  of  his  face  and  grins  on  the 
other :  who  makes  a  mock  of  life  and  death  ; 
and  conjuror-like,  keeps  the  two  balls  in  motion 


"  TICKETS    FOR    GREENWOOD."  147 

in  the  air,  heeding  little — like  the  times  he  re- 
presents— which  of  the  two  comes  down  first; 
and  dodging  with  marvellous  dexterity  to  save 
bis  head  damage  from  either  :  in  the  great  game 
he  is  playing  (we  speak  it  in  no  disrespect,)  it 
seems  to  be  a  matter  of  indifference  to  this 
ready  double-dealer,  whether  he  serves  to  his 
customers  diamonds  or  spades :  whether  his 
white  waistcoat  of  rejoicing  or  his  black  gloves 
of  woe  are  called  for.  In  the  familiar  dialect 
of  the  west,  he  is  thar' !  We  are  inclined  to 
believe  that  in  the  secret  recesses  of  the  soul 
of  Berryman,  (as  in  the  consideration  of  the 
era,  whose  truest  type  he  is,)  the  whole  affair  on 
both  sides  is  regarded  as  a  huge  jest :  a  mere 
farce,  rather  broadly  played,  but  of  short  dura- 
tion :  and  that  lying  in  one  of  these  finical  cof- 
fins, or  sitting  at  ease  on  one  of  the  parlor  otto- 
mans, is  only  a  part  of  the  pre-arranged  per- 
formance :  something  done,  as  in  the  course 
of  the  play,  merely  to  help  the  piece  along : 
and   that   he   looks   upon    these   new-fangled 


148  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

cemeteries  as  no  more  than  stage  gardens, 
with  a  fancy  fence  and  canvas  shrubbery — a 
mere  show  and  make-believe — nothing  more. 

If  we  are  to  judge  by  what  we  see,  Death — 
once  known  as  the  grim  tyrant,  the  cruel 
enemy  of  our  peace,  the  invader  of  households 
— is  the  Merry  Andrew  of  the  scene;  the 
director  of  Public  Amusements.  It  is  he  who 
announces  with  such  boastful  promise  in  the 
daily  papers,  the  scheme  of  his  entertainment : 
who  invites  the  editors  to  the  opening  of  his 
new  play-ground  :  who  rails  in  his  ring  with 
quaint  fences:  who  engages  a  company  of 
lively  directors :  who  has  an  office  in  Wall- 
street  :  who  publishes  fresh  catalogues  of  his 
attractions  in  colored  covers  :  who  contrives 
new  coffins  of  a  patent  convenience,  (like  a  Mr. 
Rice  in  the  Virginia  Mummy,)  as  a  rare  sport 
to  get  into  :  who  takes  shops  of  display  in 
Broadway  :  and  he  it  is  who  has  entered  into 
partnership  with  Mr.  John  Mace,  in  that  great 
glass  warehouse,  (a  rival  to  the  structure  of 


U  TICKETS    FOR    GREENWOOD."  149 

Industrial  Exhibition  of  1853,  up- town,  n^ar 
the  Keservoir,)  at  the  corner  of  Carmine 
street. 

Life  !  my  lively  fellow — he  seems  to  say — 
you  are  not  to  have  it  all  your  own  way.  You 
have  had  the  good  things  of  this  world  long 
enough!  My  turn  now,  if  you  please:  your 
Mrs.  Furbelow  has  had  the  turbans  and  feath- 
ers in  her  drawing-room  long  enough — all  the 
shows  and  spectacles  shall  not  belong  to  the 
Bowery  Theatre ;  so,  my  dear  Mr.  Mace, 
bring  me  out  six  iron-grey  horses  with  sable 
plumes  :  if  there  are  to  be  balls  and  parties  for 
live  folks — light  me  up,  late  into  the  evening, 
an  undertaker's  shop  with  transparent  walls  of 
glass,  that  our  neighbors  may  see  how  merry 
we  are.  Let  the  women  and  children  who 
grow  melancholy  with  serious  sports  and  semp- 
stress's work  in  the  day  time,  have  a  roaring 
regale  of  grinning  silver  plates  and  waxen 
polished  mahogany  coffins  !  Come  and  be 
buried,  my  merry  men  all !     A  shiver,  a  cold, 


150  THE    PEN- AND  INK    PANORAMA. 

sl*eet,  a  few  people  standing  around  in  black 
coats — open  the  door — and  you  are  in — Eter- 
nity !  That's  all  !  Thanks,  Mr.  John  Mace, 
for  the  gentle  introduction. 

This  is,  a  sad  and  damnatory  truth,  the  spirit 
of  the  times. 

It  is  a  part  of  our  nature  to  cherish  foolish 
hopes,  to  believe  well  of  our  kind  :  and  in  our 
vain  fancy  to  contrive  sanctuaries  a  little  re- 
moved from  the  street  and  the  market-place, 
to  remember  that  while  we  are  of  the  earth, 
earthy,  good  Providence  has  assigned  to  us 
immortal  souls,  whose  business  may  be  in 
another  scene,  where  there  is  no  traffic,  where 
painted  fashion  enters  not,  and  where  a  light 
from  far-off  stars  and  music  from  distant 
spheres  may  play  about  our  enfranchised 
spirits.  Shall  we  go  to  that  as  scholars  who 
have  learned  no  part  of  their  coming  lesson  ; 
where,  when  we  mumble  over  the  topics  of  the 
exchange  and  the  counting-room,  our  new  fel- 


"tickets  for  greenwood."  151 

low-citizens  of  the  upper  sphere  will  account 
us  foreigners  and  strangers  ? 

Oh,  let  us,  if  \vTe  can,  even  in  the  hurry  and 
bustle  of  this  the  busiest  age  of  the  world,  re- 
serve one  little  domain  sacred  to  our  nobler 
studies.  However  far  peaceful  valleys  are  in- 
vaded with  the  whirl  of  new  mechanisms,  old 
lakes  and  rivers  vexed,  though  the  temples  of 
worship  themselves  are  overthrown  in  the 
furious  speed  of  grasping  barter,  let  the  grave 
— the  dear,  sacred  grave — where  our  fathers 
and  mothers,  our  sisters  and  our  brethren 
have  gone  before  us,  lie  aloof,  as  of  old,  and 
possess  a  twilight  peace  of  its  own. 


The  scene  change  sonce  again  to  a  queer 
little  thoroughfare,  and  behold 


152  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

MRS.  ALWAYS, 

AND    THE    LITTLE    SCHOOL    IN    THE    CROOKED    STREET. 

Memory  has  its  holiday  time,  to  the  most  of 
us — and  let  it  ever  cherish  this  benignant 
power ! — opening  a  little  gallery  of  its  own  :  a 
series  of  Portraits  and  Interiors  tinted  with 
cheerful  colors,  which  live  as  fresh  to-day  on 
the  canvas,  as  in  the  first  hour  they  were  put 
there.  It  calls  up  to  most  of  us  a  picture  or 
two,  which  teaches  us  that  while  we  are  grow- 
ing old — and  gliding  swiftly  to  the  great  ocean 
which  opens  outward  on  another  world — com- 
munities and  metropolises  are  also  sailing  on- 
wards in  their  larger  bulk  and  with  their  wider 
shadow,  towards  the  same  great  bourne  of  all 
things.  It  is  within  our  remembrance — and 
we  are  not  by  any  means  "  the  oldest  inhabi- 
tant"— it  seems  but  yesterday — that  Indians 
wandered  among  us  at  holiday-time,  and  near 
upon  Christmas  were  used  to  make  their  ap- 
pearance in  the  old  Square,  (named  after  that 


MRS.     ALWAYS.  153 

noble  friend  of  ours,  Lord  Chatham,)  with  bow 
and  arrows,  and  to  shoot  at  pennies  in  a  cleft 
stick  at  some  thirty  paces — for  what  they 
could  hit ;  a  sport  patronized  of  youth  and 
sometimes  lingeringly  watched  by  grown-up 
men,  bound  homewards  with  the  Christmas 
turkey  in  hand.  Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you, 
by  the  way,  to  note  the  bearing  of  a  working- 
man,  a  thrifty  cartman  or  mechanic,  as  he  con- 
voyed this  pride  of  the  season  at  his  side. 
There  is  no  countenance  in  the  world,  I  take 
it,  which  so  happily  mingles  all  that  we  can 
imagine  of  the  grand  and  lowly — a  cross  be- 
tween pride  of  purpose  and  consciousness  of  a 
naked  bird  in  its  plumpness  dangling  by  the 
legs — as  belongs  to  the  Christmas  turkey- 
bearer  !  This,  by  the  way,  only,  and  in  con- 
nection with  the  circumstance  that  a  marvel- 
lous train  of  these — more  than  one  would 
suppose  that  narrow  precinct  could  hold — were 
visible  on  such  days  traversing  the  Square, 
and   disappearing   at  that  crook-necked  per- 


154  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANOPwAMA. 

versity  of  a  street  just  at  its  head.  Here  or 
there  it  was,  in  an  angle  not  easy  to  be  found, 
that  Mrs.  Chanty  Always,  the  widow  of  an 
excellent  Quaker  dealer  in  paints  and  oil,  had 
her  seat  or  rather  bench  of  authority,  with  the 
modest  blazon  of  "  Select  School  for  Children," 
faintly  denoted  on  a  yellow  board  on  the  gate 
of  entrance.  The  room  within  was  a  triangu- 
lar, with  two  slips  against  the  wall,  lined  with 
children  in  frocks  and  pinafores  ;  we  doubt 
whether  there  was  an  authentic  coat  or  com- 
plement of  breeches  in  the  whole  company.  As 
we  take  pleasure,  seeing  the  full-grown  bird 
on  the  wing,  in  his  strength  and  beauty 
spreading  himself  in  the  heavens,  and  circling 
the  land  in  his  daily  flight,  in  going  back  to  a 
recollection  of  the  humble  spotted  egg  in  the 
obscure  nest  from  which  he  pitched  his  wing  : 
so  can  we  help  comparing  what  we  remember 
of  the  modest  beginnings  of  schools  we  knew 
in  our  youth,  with  the  grand  and  comprehen- 
sive sweep  of  our  present  public  Seminaries, 


MRS.     ALWAYS.  155 

Free  Academies,  and  great  Colleges  of  learn- 
ing? Prim,  precise  Mother  Always,  (as  she 
was  known,)  sat  in  her  rocker,  her  ancient  sil- 
ver spectacles  lifted  from  the  nose,  rod  in  hand, 
(for  in  those  days  the  hide  was  by  no  means 
tenderly  considered,)  diligently  forwarding  and 
expediting  by  reasonable  stages  her  little 
fleecy  flock  of  innocents  up  the  roads  and  over 
the  rugged  hills  of  knowledge.  It  was  all 
head  and  hand  work  in  those  days,  main  per- 
sonal strength  of  teacher  and  learner,  that 
achieved  anything.  In  those  days  there  were 
no  picture-books,  no  colored  primers,  block- 
letters,  toys,  sliding  alphabetical  contrivances 
of  encouragement ;  but  the  twenty-six  primary 
monsters  of  the  language,  to  be  met  in  their 
naked  hideousness,  and  conquered  one  by  one 
in  open  battle.  No  singing,  no  combination 
in  classes,  no  division  of  labor ;  it  was  a  work 
of  salvation,  in  which  each  little  struggler  was 
put  to  dig  out  his  own  deliverance  :  no  straps 
nor  servants  to  carry  books,  but  an  unmis- 


156  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

takable  bag,  in  a  string  about  the  neck,  if  the 
invoice  amounted  to  so  much — at  any  rate, 
the  plain  old  spelling-book  in  its  dingy-blue 
shingle  cover,  on  the  worst  (that  is  to  say  to 
us  now  in  the  fancy,  the  best)  of  paper. 
Severity  !  Have  you  ever  looked  on  a  gen- 
eral at  the  crisis  of  battle  ?  A  Judge  deliver- 
ing a  sentence  of  death  with  the  black  cap  on  ? 
A  tiger  at  feeding  hour  ?  Mother  Always, 
kindly-hearted  woman  as  she  was,  when  she 
came  to  the  house  to  take- tea  with  the  parents 
out  of  school-hours,  could  have  sat  for  her  por- 
trait, and  given  them  odds  in  rigidity  of  fea- 
ture and  unwavering  resoluteness  of  purpose. 
I  tremble  when  I  meet  her  now — although  I 
have  practised  law  since,  and  badgered  Judge 
and  Jury  in  my  time.  She  seems  a  reproach- 
ful ghost  or  spectre,  with  her  pale,  unmoving, 
quiet  features,  stepped  out  of  the  past,  with  a 
dreadful  account  to  settle  of  forgotten  alpha- 
bets, misreckoned  sums,  loiterings  to  schools, 
and  truancies  of  absence.    She,  too,  has  never, 


MRS.    ALWAYS.  157 

changed  her  relations  one  jot,  or  in  a  single 
relaxed  look,  towards  her  childish  scholars. 

Samuel  D ,  the  Congressman,  is  still  in  the 

first  form  with  her  ;  Barney  H- ,  although 

a  mighty  College  Professor  is  still  stumbling  in 

words  of  two   syllables ;    E.  N ,  though 

accounted  one  of  the  most  correct  and  finished 
writers  of  the  land,  is  still  blundering  in  his 
accidence  with  her.  No  attempt  at  a  greater 
familiarity  of  any  one  of  all  has  ever,  so  far, 
succeeded  with  her.  She  still  holds  the  rod 
in  terror  em  in  all  her  encounters.  A  blessing 
on  her  careful  steps — wherever  they  tread 
now  !  Though  it  is  many  a  day  since  they 
fearfully  crossed  us — may  she  still  linger  long 
upon  earth  to  appropriate  to  herself  as  she 
quietly  does,  all  their  achievings  ;  weaving  in 
upon  the  plain  ground  of  her  Quaker  cap,  all 
the  laurels,  and  chaplets,  and  glories  they  are 
earning.  She  it  is,  in  her  way  of  looking  at  it, 
that  sits  upon  the  Judge's  bench,  writes  all 
those  fine  books,  and  delivers  all  those  great 


158  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

speeches  in  the  House.  "  For,"  she  reasonably 
asks,  "  what  would  they  all  have  been  with- 
out me  ?"  True,  venerable  mother  !  It  was 
you  that  opened  the  gate,  and  let  us  into  those 
wide  pastures  ;  you  instructed  our  timid  teeth 
in  those  first  cautious  nibblings,  and  shall  we 
now  deny  the  voice  of  the  shepherdess  ?  The 
tree  has  grown,  and  has  spread  wide  its 
verdurous  branches;  but  it  was  you  that  had 
the  acorn  in  your  pocket,  (that  mysterious 
cavern  where  so  much  disappeared,)  and  if  you 
and  others  of  your  kindred  had  not  had  the 
goodness  to  plant  it,  would  our  beloved  city 
have  been  at  this  happy  hour  other  than  a 
waste  howling  wilderness,  without  college  roof 
or  academy  spire,  to  lift  its  cheerful  summit 
over  our  heads,  and  the  heads  of  our  children  ? 


Stop  a  moment  here,  if  you  please,  and  let 
us  have  a  word  to  say  on 


STREET    ENTERTAINMENTS.  159 

SEEING  THE   BEAR  DANCE  AND  OTHER  STREET 
ENTERTAINMENTS. 

Time  appears  to  have  taken  notice  of  the 
bitter  complaint  of  the  great  comic  novelist  of 
England,  that  he  could  find  no  street-mice, 
hurdy-gurdies,  or  other  comforts  of  that  sort,  in 
the  highways  of  New- York.  Mice  are  still 
scarce ;  but  in  the  interval  since  his  lament, 
hand-organs  have  visited  every  thoroughfare, 
and  there  is  scarcely  a  house  iu  the  metropolis 
without  its  attendant  grinder,  as  regular  in  his 
appearance  as  a  well-paid  family  physician. 
Monkeys,  too,  abound ;  blind  harpers ;  Swiss 
pandeans;  Italian  choruses;  performers  on 
the  flute,  and  whole  caravans  of  fantoccini. 
At  no  season  of  the  year  are  these  indolent 
men  idle — they  pay  no  heed  to  swallows  or 
butter-cups,  but  are  in  a  state  of  perpetual 
bloom  along  the  side-wTalks — always  in  blow. 
We  have  a  surprising  growth  of  street  spec- 
tacles in  the  great  thoroughfares ;  out-of-door 


160  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

shows  of  a  more  ambitious  character — small 
theatres  and  spectaculums.  For  instance,  in 
a  sort  of  rivalry  with  the  Bowery  and  Chat- 
ham— midw7ay  between  these  popular  houses 
— what  is  it  we  have  before  us?  A  small 
structure  on  wheels,  at  the  corner  of  the  Square 
and  Mott-street,  with  a  big-lettered  announce- 
ment, that  the  Bear  is  dancing  within  at  two 
cents  a  sight.  Payment  not  being  required  in 
advance,  and  the  price,  in  consideration  of  a 
rival  cosmorama,  a  yard  off,  having  been  let 
down  to  a  penny,  we  put  our  head  under  a 
crimson  hood,  and  get  a  capital  view  of  a  bril- 
liant interior — exhibiting  a  series  of  affection- 
ate dances  of  some  half-a-dozen  lively  bears 
with  so  many  lovety  young  ladies,  underillumi- 
nation from  the  back  of  the  box.  The  crowd 
stand  off  in  a  respectful  circle  awaiting  our  cri- 
tical report ;  and  when  it  is  announced  to  be 
a  most  satisfactory  and  enchanting  exhibition, 
the  pennies,  you  see,  pour  in  with  great  vio- 
lence, the  conductor  smiles,  and  leaving  the 


CHATHAM- STKEET.  161 

women  and  children  about  the  Bear  Dance,  in 
the  happy  alphabet  of  their  education,  as  wit- 
nesses of  a  first  performance,  we  strike  forth- 
with into 

CHATHAM-STREET 

We  have  known  Chatham-street  since  our 
boyhood.  It  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  educa- 
tion of  a  New-Yorker.  Not  to  have  studied 
humanity  in  that  great  highway,  is  to  have 
read  "  Othello"  omitting  the  third  act — to  have 
eaten  icecream,  neglecting  the  last  dainty 
dropping  in  the  glass— to  have  partaken  of 
straw-berries,  leaving  the  largest  and  ripest  in 
the  dish — in  fact  an  extremely  absurd  and 
foolish  thing.  To  consider  Chatham-street 
rightly,  we  may  take  it  either  by  the  handle  or 
the  bowl,  for  it  lies  like  a  spoon,  with  its  bulge 
at  the  square,  declining  gently  till  it  comes  to 
an  end  at  Tammany  Hall.  To  begin  at  the 
small  end,  it  must  be  confessed  that  this  re- 
nowned thoroughfare  has  a  rather  shabby  and 


162  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

deserted  look  in  that  quarter,  having  but  one 
side  to  it,  and  being  confronted  in  its  poverty 
by  the  stately  public  buildings,  the  City  Hall, 
Hall  of  Records,  &c.,  although  it  even  then 
stickles  for  its  rights,  and  puts  forth  its  three 
balls  under  Mr.  Simpson's  patronage,  inviting 
small  parcels,  umbrellas,  family  jewels,  and 
other  nick-nacks,  thither  in  pledge!  We  could 
tell  a  story,  just  here,  that  would  bring  tears  to 
your  eyes — of  a  little  child  whose  sole  wish 
from  infancy,  was  to  see  his  grandfather,  (poor 
grandfather  was  dead — he  had  been  a  noted 
beau  in  his  time,)  and  who  was  instructed  to 
seek  him  at  Mr.  Simpson's,  whither  resorting 
he  had  shown  him  the  cane,  the  cocked  hat, 
the  breeches,  ruffles,  and  other  appendages  of 
his  venerable  progenitor — which  had  been  duly 
spouted  in  his  life-time ;  but  no  matter,  the 
story's  rather  long,  and  as  it  has  been  told 
more  than  once  before,  you  had,  perhaps, 
better  be  spared.  Not  far  from  this,  just 
past  the  Fork,  is  a  spot  memorable  for  its  con- 


CHATHAM-STREET.  163 

nection  with  the  late  Mexican  war.  The  num- 
ber of  times  that  small  boy  in  regimentals  has 
beaten  that  drum,  and  the  number  of  stories 
that  gentleman  in  the  belt  and  sergeant's  hat, 
has  told  to  innocent-looking  young  men  from 
up  town,  would  be  hard  to  calculate.  We  sup- 
pose there  has  been  about  as  many  of  the  one  as 
of  the  other.  And  that  they  might  come  down 
to  the  rendezvous  duly  sharpened  to  warlike 
thoughts,  some  special  providence  has  planted 
just  above  it  a  long  range — the  longest  in  the 
metropolis — of  gunshops,  their  windows  filled 
with  all  sorts  of  murderous  instruments,  brist- 
ling with  dirks,  rampant  with  cocked  pistols 
and  clamorous  with  great  open-mouthed  mus- 
kets. 

If  you  were  asked  through  what  street  in 
New-York,  in  a  given  time,  the  greatest  num- 
ber of  dirty  shirts  passed,  we  think  the  chances 
are  ten  to  one  you  would  name  Chatham  ;  and 
yet,  strangely  enough,  this  very  street  has  been 
selected  as  the  stronghold  and   entrenchment 


164  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

of  the  linen  drapers.  With  their  great  trans- 
parent windows,  equipped  with  endless  relays 
of  new  shirts,  staring  forth  with  fresh  pearl 
buttons,  they  are  a  perpetual  reproach  to  tra- 
vellers in  that  street,  and  seem  to  be  saying  to 
them  constantly,  "  Go  home,  my  poor  fellow, 
and  put  on  a  clean  shirt !"  where  perhaps 
there  is  no  shirt  to  be  had  to  put  on.  But 
Chatham-street  rallies  characteristically  on  the 
other  side  of  the  way  :  for  it  is  there  that  Old 
Clo'  has  pitched  his  paradise  ;  it  is  there,  that 
to  be  shorn  of  their  buttons,  to  have  a  small 
rent  in  the  back,  to  be  out  of  color  is  no  objec- 
tion in  a  coat  or  other  garment,  not  the  least ; 
but  rather  commends  it,  connecting  it  by  secret 
association  with  the  antiquity  and  long- 
descended  history  of  their  own  race.  You 
have  perhaps  not  been  a  student  of  the  Chat- 
ham-street Jew  ?  You  have  done  yourself  a 
great  injustice.  In  our  earliest  recollections 
of  him,  he  lived  in  patriarchal  simplicity,  in  a 
small  burrow  at  the  back  of  his  shop,  from 


CHATHAM-STREET.  165 

which  he  was  contented  to  observe  the  world 
of  traffic  through  a  glazed  window,  running 
forth  into  the  shop  from  time  to  time,  as  the 
calls  of  trade  required  him.  Presently,  as  he 
grows  more  corrupt  in  the  midst  of  an  advan- 
cing civilization,  he  takes  up  his  station  in  the 
shop.  Even  here  he  would  not  be  at  rest,  but 
shortly  seized  his  stool  and  sallied  forth  at  the 
shop  door  and  planted  himself  firmly  on  the 
stoop.  These  movements  were  simultaneous 
through  the  whole  range,  so  that  you,  at  the 
selfsame  instant,  heard  the  clatter  of  the 
advancing  stools  from  every  shop  in  the  street. 
Now  many  pleasant  dialogues  ensued  between 
the  young  gentleman  of  Jewry,  of  a  right  witty 
and  trenchant  character,  and  many  friendly 
appeals  were  addressed  to  gentlemen  from 
the  country,  in  which  their  attention  was  soli- 
cited to  a  "  first-rate  coat,"  or  "  them  pants," 
or  "  not'ing  of  this  sort,  neighbor  ?"  This 
pleasant  game  was,  by  times,  carried  so  far 
that  these  Jewry-men  did  take  to  marching, 


166  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

even  like  the  men  of  G-ilgal  before  Jericho,  up 
and  down  the  walk,  and  seizing  by  violence 
the  men  from  the  far  countries,  hauled  them, 
with  force,  within  their  fastnesses,  and  there 
impressed  them,  whether  they  would  or  no,  in 
garments  of  the  strangest  make,  dimensions, 
and  fitnesses.  This  street,  reader,  was  in  the 
old  times  of  this  Island,  a  war-path  of  Man- 
hattan Indians  to  the  West ;  civilization  hath 
not  affected  it  greatly.  The  old  red  men 
scalped  their  enemies,  the  Chatham  Go'  men 
skin  theirs.  So  little  difference  have  two  hun- 
dred years  in  changing  the  character  of  man- 
kind ! 

Leaving  the  clean  linen  and  faded  clothes 
shops  to  stare  each  other  out  of  countenance 
as  long  as  they  choose,  let  us  go  up  the  street 
a  little  way.  There  seems  to  be  a  wonderful 
activity  in  this  street,  a  perpetual  movement 
of  mighty  streams  of  people,  and  it  would  be 
curious,  if  we  could,  to  ascertain  the  springs, 
or  spring  which  set  them  a-going.  All  through 


CHATHAM- STREET.  167 

this  thoroughfare,  to  whatever  part  we  pro* 
ceed,  we  discover  in  great  baskets,  festooned 
on  strings,  piled  in  tin  measures,  and  spread 
out  on  great  boards,  endless  supplies  of  a  little 
bulbus  vegetable,  which  men,  women,  and  boys 
are  busy  dealing  out  to  passers  by,  who,  par- 
taking thereof,  go  on  their  way  rejoicing.  The 
pea-nut  is  the  motive  power  of  Chatham-street, 
and  all  Chatham-street  has  of  culture,  litera- 
ture, the  drama,  springs  from  the  pea-nut. 
Without  the  pea-nut  Chanfrau  had  never  been, 
the  great  Mose  were  non-existent;  without  the 
pea-nut,  trade  w?ould  decline,  and  civilization 
become  extinct  in  that  portion  of  the  metropo- 
lis. It  is  the  bread-plant  of  these  east-siders, 
their  manna  in  the  wilderness.  Watch  them 
closely  ;  if  any  great  blight  has  come  over 
their  spirits ;  if  there  has  not  been  enough 
fires  or  too  little  water ;  if  the  Chatham  Theatre 
is  shut,  or  Mr.  Chanfrau  has  gone  to  Boston, 
or  any  other  circumstance  has  happened  to 
affect  their  lightness  of  heart — note  their  con- 


168  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

duct !  They  will  keep  from  the  pea-nut,  with 
a  sort  of  holy  and  self-imposed  abstinence  for 
many  days,  and  only  by  degrees,  as  matters 
mend  with  them,  (a  great  fire  is  the  speediest 
relief,)  take  to  them  again.  Such  is  man  in  all 
ages  of  the  world  ! 

But  listen  !  We  are  nearing  one  of  the 
Prairies,  with  all  the  bull  buffaloes  of  the  west 
assembled  in  one  place,  all  roaring  at  once  ! 
Or,  is  it  a  second  Niagara  burst  from  the 
earth,  clamoring  with  the  voice  of  fifty  thousand 
demons  ?  Let  us  climb  the  hill  and  learn  for 
ourselves — and  now  we  get  for  the  first  time  a 
view  of  the  renowned  Chatham  Square,  at  the 
height  of  its  glory,  for  it  is  auction-day,  and 
with  the  red  flags  flying,  and  furniture  and 
utensils  of  every  name  and  kind  strewn  on 
every  side,  it  has  the  look  of  a  lively  field  of 
battle,  where  the  contest  is  well-sustained  on 
every  hand.  But  even  these  almighty  lungs 
at  last  give  out;  carts  and  barrows  rush  in; 
the  square  is  cleared ;  the  sun  declines,   and 


CHATHAM.  STREET.  169 

with  long  streams  of  bright  tin-ketties  making 
for  the  Bowery,  Division-street,  and  the  thor- 
oughfares on  the  East-side,  the  day  draws  to 
a  close.  A  comparative  silence  broods  over 
the  Square,  broken  by  a  sailor  getting  up  from 
the  East  side  by  way  of  Oliver-street,  and 
making  for  a  harbor  somewhere  in  the  keys 
and  recesses  of  Doyer  and  Pell  streets  ;  a  stray 
fisherman  comes  out  of  Catherine-street,  and 
with  his  rickety  wagon  and  long  trumpet, 
steers  for  the  Points  through  Mott-street,  break- 
ing the  silence  with  a  doleful  cry,  "  Oysters  ! — ■ 
any  good — Oy-s-ters  I"  Midnight  strikes  from 
the  clock  at  the  Fork,  and — we  all  go  to  bed. 


And  here,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  we  stand 
where  we  can  look  straight  down  into  that 
dark  and  dismal  hollow  of  the  Five  Points, 
which  sets  us  as  we  walk  through — step  care- 
fully, ladies  and  gentlemen  ! — thinking  upon 


170  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 


REFORMING  THE  WORLD  BY  WHOLESALE. 

If  we  encounter  a  fellow-being  who  is  hun- 
gry, and  hand  him  a  loaf  of  bread,  which 
appeases  his  appetite,  we  know  that  we  have 
done  him  a  service.  If  we  announce  from  the 
house-top,  and  in  the  market-place,  that  we 
think  the  condition  of  every  man  on  the  face 
of  the  earth  should  be  ameliorated,  and  come 
down  only  to  organize  great  societies  to  go  to 
Australia  and  the  North  Pole,  to  repeat  the 
same  theoretical  statement,  we  ought  not  to  be 
sure  that  we  have  done  "  any  great  things," 
after  all.  By  great  brags  and  large  professions 
of  universal  kindness,  we  are  very  likely  to  let 
go  our  duty  to  our  neighbors,  and  those  who 
are   nearest  and  should  be  dearest  to  us. 

These  reflections  occur  to  us  in  connection 
with  a  recent  incident.  A  meagre,  hollow- 
chested  gentleman,  with  straight  hair,  and  of 
a  chalky  complexion,  waited  upon  us   one  day 


REFORMING    THE    WORLD    BY    WHOLESALE.     171 

last  week,  and  insisted  upon  laying  before  us 
a  comprehensive  plan  for  the  reformation  and 
improvement  of  the  citizens  and  subjects  of 
Eussia,  Prussia,  France,  Italy,  Ireland,  and 
Great  Britain.  We  took  the  liberty  of  asking 
him  whether  his  own  condition  could  not  be 
improved  ? 

"  In  what  respect,  sir  ?" 

"  Why,  sir,"  we  replied,  "  if  you  would  get 
up  every  morning,  and  throw  stones  into  a 
cart  for  a  couple  of  hours,  or  saw  fire- wood  for 
your  neighbors,  we  think  you  would  enlarge 
your  chest,  which  seems  now  to  be  rapidly 
falling  in,  and  greatly  add  to  your  own  imme- 
diate comfort." 

He  looked  blank  for  a  moment,  but  recover- 
ing himself,  proposed  to  argue  the  question  on 
the  celebrated  Five  Points  of  Theology.  We 
had  no  time  to  spare  for  further  answer,  than 
to  recommend  him  to  study  the  Five  Points 
of  Orange,  Cross,  and  Anthony  streets.  With 
a  ghastly  smile,  he  departed,  and  we  never  ex 


172  THE   PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

pect  to  see  him  again.  While  his  head  is  in  a 
frenzy  about  the  people  at  the  other  end  of 
the  world,  poor  fellow,  he  is  "  caving  in"  him- 
self as  fast  as  he  can.  His  plans  are  altogether 
too  vague  and  distant.  And  he  is  but  a  better 
specimen  of  a  whole  race  of  modern  reformers 
— men  of  so  loose  ideas,  that  they  are  always 
at  least  a  mile  wide  of  their  mark,  in  their  at- 
tempts to  benefit  their  fellow-men. 

The  breeches  (with  respect,)  these  people 
contrive,  are  so  large  and  comprehensive,  that 
while  they  are  intended  for  all  mankind,  they 
fit  so  poorly,  that  they  do  not  afford  the  least 
comfort  to  the  limbs  of  a  single  member  of  the 
whole  human  race.  It  is  the  philanthropy  of 
the  moon,  which,  while  it  looks  very  full  and 
pure,  does  not  furnish  one  ray  of  heat ;  while 
the  honest  old  sun  goes  about  his  day's  wTork 
with  genuine  ardor,  and  makes  the  world 
happy  with  his  every-day  light,  without  any 
pretence  of  excessive  purity  or  freedom  from 


OUR    FESTIVALS.  173 

blemish,  which  that  wretched  impostor  and 
borrower,  the  moon,  claims  as  her  special 
virtue. 


Ladies  and  gentlemen,  having  conducted 
you  through  the  city  on  both  sides,  with  such 
pictorial  help  in  illustration  of  scene  and  char- 
acter as  I  could,  I  have  but  a  "  stretch"  or  two 
more  of  canvas  to  unroll  before  I  dismiss  you. 
"Will  you  pardon  me,  as  we  approach  a  sort  of 
grand  climax  in  the  Panorama,  if  I  say  a  word 
upon  a  general  topic  of  which  that  is  for  the 
present  moment  the  special  example  ?  What 
is  to  be  thought  of 

OUR  FESTIVALS. 

The  metropolis  of  New  York  is  unquestion- 
ably the  favorite  child  of  Brother  Jonathan  ; 
and  repeats  the  features  of  its  wide-awake  and 
universal  parent,  with  the  greatest  truth  and 


174  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

freshness.  Ours  is  an  age  of  miscellaneous 
activity,  of  which  Jonathan  himself  may  fairly 
claim  to  be  the  prime  representative,  and  of  all 
miscellanies,  Manhattan  is  certainly  the  most 
comprehensive  and  various.  Of  contributions 
to  this  mighty  medley  a  notion  may  be  formed 
when  it  is  known  that  in  a  late  report,  the  im- 
migration for  one  year  to  this  port  ranged 
from  a  single  Malay  up  to  a  hundred  thousand 
Irishmen,  embracing  in  the  intermediate  figures 
of  the  scale,  representatives  of  something  like 
thirty  nations.  The  result  is  that  in  our  streets 
a  thousand  streams  of  character,  dress,  dialect, 
cross  each  other,  and  that  no  such  thing  as  a 
pure  streak  is  to  be  had ;  there  is  scarcely 
any  class  large  enough  to  stand  by  itself  and 
to  control  public  opinion.  This  will  explain 
in  a  considerable  degree  why  it  is  that  in  all 
our  public  entertainments,  theatres,  concerts, 
balls,  lectures,  &c,  &c,  and  even  in  the  pro- 
fessedly exclusive  opera  itself,  provision  is 
required  to  be  made  for  all  tastes  ;  so  that  a 


OUR    FESTIVALS.  175 

sufficient  number  may  be  called  in  to  counte- 
nance and  sustain  the  enterprise.  Where  an 
average  is  in  this  way  struck  in  literature  or 
the  arts,  it  will  of  necessity  fall  below  the  high- 
est standards  ;  common-place  would  become 
the  rule  :  and  if  our  glorious  metropolis  should 
therefore,  fail  on  public  occasions  to  produce 
the  impression  which  might  be  expected  from 
its  size  and  its  resources,  it  will  be  understood 
that  in  the  very  scale  of  these  resources  lies 
the  chief  difficulty.  A  village  spectacle  of  the 
humblest  compass  would,  we  fancy,  as  a  mere 
piece  of  picturesqueness,  be  more  effective  and 
satisfactory  than  the  grand  and  enormous 
"  turn  outs,"  in  which  New  York  from  time  to 
time,  indulges.  New  York  has  all  the  mate- 
rials in  ample  variety  and  abundance,  for  an 
epic  city  on  a  grand  scale  ;  but  it  wants  direc- 
tion and  unity.  How  are  these  to  be  acquired 
and  secured  ?  Clearly  nothing  can  be  accom- 
plished in  pursuits  or  engagements  of  a  private 
character.     We  cannot  prescribe  to  the  build- 


176  THE    FEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

ers  of  residences  that  they  shall  be  constructed 
on  any  general  principles,  or  that  harmony 
shall  be  observed  either  in  a  suitable  concord 
or  discord  of  arrangement.  "We  cannot  bring 
the  proprietors  of  omnibuses  to  acknowledge 
pictorial  propriety  in  the  build  and  embellish- 
ment of  their  coaches  ;  nor  can  we  enact  or 
enforce  sumptuary  laws  for  the  regulation  of 
the  dress  of  our  citizens,  so  that  they  shall 
present  suitable  colors  and  agreeable  contrasts. 
For  all  these  and  like  matters,  the  town  is  a 
chartered  libertine,  and  will  have  its  own  way 
without  let  or  hindrance.  There  is,  however,  a 
very  decided  inclination  among  our  people  to 
come  together,  without  distinction  of  class, 
caste,  or  degree  ;  and  this  is  one  of  the  happiest 
auguries  of  our  age  and  country.  In  no  coun- 
try on  the  surface  of  the  globe  are  so  many 
professions,  callings,  and  trades  represented, 
ranging  from  the  highest  to  the  humblest, 
mingled  in  common,  and  on  terms  of  perfect 
equality,  as  in  one  of  our  public  assemblies, 


OUR    FESTIVALS.  177 

whether  it  be  church,  theatre,  lecture-room  or 
political  gathering.  It  is  a  fortunate  necessity 
of  our  community,  so  various  in  country  and 
pursuit,  that  they  are  thus  brought  together 
on  a  free  footing ;  and  the  oftener  it  occurs, 
the  more  speedily  and  constantly  shall  we  be- 
come a  fraternal,  united,  and  homogeneous 
community.  The  occasions  to  which  we  have 
referred,  are,  however,  limited  in  their  scope 
and  in  the  numbers  upon  which  they  act.  The 
influences  and  opportunities  are  rare  which 
inspire  the  whole  body  of  our  citizens  with  a 
common  sentiment,  and  force  them  into  a  like- 
thinking  and  like-feeling  society.  Such,  for 
instance,  as  the  death  of  a  President,  the  com- 
mon ruler  of  the  country,  (although  this  may 
be  touched  with  partisan  biases;)  or  the 
achievement  of  a  national  victory,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  late  Mexican  war,  when,  we  re- 
member with  a  glow,  how  the  whole  inhabita- 
tion of  our  metropolis  poured  into  the  streets 
at  night,  and  we  saw  no  less  than  a  hundred 


178  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

thousand  men,  women,  and  children — inclu- 
ding the  fairest  in  costly  apparel,  and  the  plain- 
est in  homely  garb — assembled  in  a  public 
park,  as  witnesses  of  the  triumphant  illumina- 
tion. We  knew  the  heart,  we  felt  that  night 
the  power  of  the  great  community  in  which 
we  live  ;  and  we  will  engage  that  a  secret  in- 
spection of  the  movements  and  motives  of  our 
fellow-citizens  would  have  shown  less  asperity, 
and  the  pressure  of  a  kindlier  bond  following 
that  night's  joyful  celebration.  Occasions  like 
these  are,  in  their  very  nature,  accidental  and 
rare :  and  we  can  accordingly  found  our  hope 
only  on  established  holidays  of  regular  recur- 
rence. Meanwhile,  let  us  confess  that  this  is 
an  excitable  city  of  a  wonderfully  changeable 
humor.  The  spirits  of  New  York  are  up  and 
down,  the  entire  length  of  the  barometer,  at 
least  a  dozen  times  in  the  year. 

One  short  month  works  wTonders  in  the 
aspect  of  our  volatile  metropolis.  Houses  are 
down  that  were  up — brick-piles,  inspired  with 


OUR    FESTIVALS.  179 

life  by  the  magic  glance  of  the  architect,  spring 
up  to  be  houses.  Streets  are  shut  up  which 
were  open — -and  new  highways  cut  through 
earth  and  rock.  Churches  changed  into 
auction-rooms — theatres  into  churches.  All 
alive  with  a  dog  at  every  door — and  then 
not  a  yelp  to  be  heard  in  all  the  town.  New 
liberty-poles  erected,  and  flags  flying  one  day 
for  France,  the  next  for  Italy,  the  next  for 
Hungary — shad  come  and  gone — strawberries, 
raspberries,  blackberries,  and  all  the  kindred 
and  family  of  berries — wedding-garments  made 
and  worn-out — funerals  by  the  score,  by  the 
hundred.  Some  general  malady,  for  example, 
comes  upon  the  town — how  sad  the  city  !  As 
in  a  single  night  all  smiles  depart — the  eyes 
of  the  city  as  of  one  man,  dull  and  gloomy — ■ 
the  step  of  the  people  slow  and  troubled — 
the  very  negroes  stop  laughing.  This  is 
under  the  first  access  and  alarm.  One  short 
month,  and  under  Providence,  the  healthy  con- 
stitution of  our  Island  City  has  happily  sur- 


180  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

vived  the  shock,  and  promises  to  live  on  a  long 
life  of  peace,  liberality,  and  prosperous  com- 
merce. The  citizen  has  recovered  his  New 
York  rapidity  of  pace — -the  children  are  out 
again  with  their  hoops — the  dustman  has  con- 
fidence to  lift  up  his  voice — the  milkman  wields 
his  bell  with  its  old  clamor.  The  very  trees 
shake  their  leaves  as  if  they  knew,  (as  they 
probably  do,)  that  the  prevailing  epidemic  is 
gone  or  going.  We  hear  sundry  canary  birds 
of  our  acquaintance,  absolutely  tongue-tied  for 
weeks,  singing  as  if  for  dear  life — and  we  think 
we  discover  at  Niblo's  Garden  that  Francois 
Ravel  has  several  extraordinary  comic  twists 
of  the  leg  and  contortions  of  the  countenance 
which  he  had  laid  aside  for  a  time — brought 
forward  as  fresh  as  new.  The  mayor  of  the 
city  recovers  something  of  his  proper  municipal 
pomp  of  manner,  and  the  Board  of  Aldermen 
and  Assistants  begin  to  smack  strongly  in  the 
supper-room. 


ON    THE    ROAD.  181 

And  now  that  we  have  dispatched  the  city- 
proper,  let  us  take  car  and  roll  along  our  pan- 
oramic way  to  the  extreme  landmark  of  its 
present  civilization,  to  wit,  the  Crystal  Palace. 
"What  line  shall  we  take  ?  Here  are  yellow 
cars  and  red  cars,  and  salmon-colored  cars, 
and  clean  cars,  and  dingy  cars ;  and  omnibuses 
two-horsecl,  four-horsed,  and  twelve-horsed, 
(with  feathers  in  their  ears,)  all  pouring  toward 
that  great  up-town  terminus — which  shall  we 
take  ? 

If  there  were  a  car  or  an  omnibus  with  a 
comfortable  seat  a-top,  there  would  be  a  chance 
— for  unless  you  have  tried  it,  you  can't  fancy 
the  new  views  of  life  you  get  from  an  elevation 
like  the  driver's  seat  of  the  omnibuses — glimp- 
ses of  interiors,  far-off  views,  river  and  country- 
perspectives  down  side  streets,  all  utterly  lost 
to  the  poor  prisoner  caged  within,  and  lim- 
ited to  the  narrow  look-out  of  the  window. 
We  have  made  our  choice  and  away  we  go  ! 
A  steamer  is  just  in,  as  is  known  by  the  guns 


182  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

fired  in  the  direction  of  the  Battery  half  an- 
hour  ago — and  what  cloud  is  it  that  has  rained 
down  these  clamorous  boys  all  over  the  city  ? 
and  who  are  these  wonderful  boys  to  be  seen 
everywhere — swift  of  foot,  wide-awake,  nimble- 
fingered,  superhuman  in  activity,  and  typical 
in  their  universality,  of  this  great  metropolis 
itself?     These  are 

THE  NEWSBOYS. 

The  genuine  Newsboy,  in  his  full  develop- 
ment and  activity,  we  fancy,  does  not  exist, 
except  in  New  York.  Your  Philadelphia 
Newsboy,  now,  has  a  sort  of  slow-and-easy, 
deliberate  sing-song,  which  inspires  you  with 
anything  but  a  desire  to  read  the  news.  But 
in  New  York  the  quick,  snapping  cry,  uttered 
while  under  a  full  run,  and  trailing  along  like 
the  smoke  of  a  steam-pipe  with  the  boat 
at  the  top  of  her  speed,  communicates  a  sort 
of  excitement  to  the  dullest  laggard  in  the 
street,  and  sets  the  whole  city  in  a  state  of 


THE    NEWSBOYS.  183 

effervescence  directly.  The  Newsboy  is  the 
lemon  in  the  tumbler  of  everyday  life,  making 
it  pungent  and  smart  with  a  flavor.  Without 
him,  the  giant's  arm,  the  Press,  would  lose  much 
of  its  power,  and  half  its  activity.  He  is  the 
spider's  leg  which  feels  and  forewarns  the  com- 
munity of  approaching  news — the  taster  of  the 
great  cup  of  Newspaperism,  which  everybody 
quatfs.  Formerly  the  Newsboy  cried  the 
leading  featnre  of  his  news — but  he  found  that 
many  hundreds  did  not  care  to  hear  any  more, 
and  passed  on  without  buying.  So  now  he 
has  become  chary  of  his  crying,  and  gives  as 
little  as  possible  of  the  purport  of  his  budget. 
If  you  stop  him  and  inquire  what  is  the  news, 
you  may  get  a  civil  answer — but  we  would 
advise  you  not  to  rely  too  much  on  the  accu- 
racy of  the  intelligence.  If  you  would  have 
the  news,  fork  over  your  pennies  for  an  Extra 
Tribune,  Times,  Herald,  or  Sun,  and  then 
read  it  honestly  and  with  a  clean  conscience. 
We  have  never  made  the  attempt  to  count 


184  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

the  Newsboys,  but  we  suppose,  from  a  gener- 
al observation  of  them  in  all  their  haunts  and 
localities,  that  there  are  about  three  hundred 
regularly  and  permanently  on  duty — increased 
by  fifty  or  more  on  extraordinary  occasions. 
"When  the  first  Newsboy  appeared,  or  where 
he  came  from,  no  man  has  yet  told  :  we  sup- 
pose, as  to  his  parentage,  he  was  the  son  of  an 
Oysterman,  from  whom  he  derived  his  voice, 
and  the  free  and  self-possessed  manner  with 
which  he  employs  it  in  the  street. 

In  his  dress,  he  does  not  affect  the  latest 
fashions.  No  Newsboy,  no  legitimate  News- 
boy, has  ever  been  seen  in  a  whole  suit.  The 
uniform  of  his  Craft  is  a  slouched  cloth  cap, 
dilapidated  roundabout  and  breeches,  no  shoes 
nor  stockings,  and  a  dirty  face  with  hands  to 
match. 

Notwithstanding  the  diligent  and  elaborate 
search  we  have  instituted,  we  have  not  been 
able  to  ascertain  where  the  Newsboy  has  fur- 
nished himself  with  his  dress.     We  have  in- 


THE    NEWSBOYS.  185 

quired  at  all  the  tailors :  not  one  of  them  is 
tailor  to  the  Newsboys.  At  the  slop  shops 
they  work  for  the  sailors,  not  for  the  News- 
boys. At  the  second-hand  clothes-dealers  in 
Chatham-street,  they  do  not  recollect  to  have 
ever  had  a  Newsboy  for  a  customer.  Some 
have  supposed  their  rigs,  or  fit  outs,  are  thrown 
into  the  street  over  night,  by  unseen  hands, 
and  picked  up  early  in  the  morning  by  the 
Boys.  Others,  that  they  grow  upon  the  News- 
boys by  degrees,  like  moss  about  tree-trunks  : 
that  one  day  a  pair  of  trousers  comes,  the  next 
week  what  they  call  a  coat,  and  then,  as  the 
season  advances,  an  old  cloth-cap.  For  ourselves 
we  believe  these  suits  have  descended  to  the 
Nineteenth  Century  from  a  remote  antiquity  ; 
that  they  are  fragments  of  the  costume  of  a 
remote  period,  artfully  reconstructed  :  and  it 
is  not  impossible,  (and  the  heathen  manner 
in  which  they  are  freely  riddled  gives  plausi- 
bility to  the  conjecture,)  that  some  of  them 
have  figured  in  the  Crusades.     Find  us  the 


186  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

tailor  who  makes  the  Newsboy's  Uniform,  and 
we  will  tell  you  when  the  American  Union  is 
going  to  be  dissolved. 

"We  are  afraid  Tom  Newsboy  is  a  trifle  pro- 
fligate ;  he  swears,  we  know,  freely ;  drinks, 
fights,  and  very  often  stays  out  all  night.  This 
last  we  must  not  dwell  on  too  strongly  as  a 
vice,  for  it  is  often  a  necessity.  Tom  having 
no  home  to  go  to,  and  not  thinking  it  worth 
while  to  be  at  a  charge  for  lodgings,  takes  up  his 
quarters  for  the  night  in  a  box  or  bunk,  under 
a  stoop  or  in  an  entry  way,  where  half  a  dozen 
of  them  frequently  huddle  together,  heads  and 
points,  with  a  shaggy  dog  in  their  midst,  as 
good  a  fellow  as  any  of  them. 

Tom  indulges,  too,  in  games  of  chance,  and 
is  scarcely  ever  without  dice,  small  cards,  and 
other  implements  of  hazard  in  his  pocket.  "We 
believe  he  has  some  games  peculiar  to  himself, 
of  his  own  devising.  He  pitches  pennies 
sometimes,  like  all  other  boys,  or  plays  at 
marbles ;  but  this  he  holds  to  be  a  small  busi- 


THE    NEWSBOYS.  187 

ness.  In  general  he  disdains  the  common 
sports  of  youth,  and  rises  on  the  wing  into  a 
loftier  region  of  his  own. 

The  most  extraordinary  feature,  perhaps,  in 
the  whole  history  of  the  Newsboy,  is  his  pro- 
found passion  for  the  Theatre.  This  is  one  of 
the  earliest  uses  to  which  he  devotes  his  first 
earnings.  The  Chatham  or  the  Bowery,  has 
always  the  first-fruits.  At  the  opening  of 
the  doors  he  throws  himself  into  the  pit,  and 
with  judicial  steadiness  watches  the  progress 
of  the  piece.  He  generally  takes  possession 
of  the  middle  of  the  benches  :  many  of  them, 
by  inscribing  their  names  thereupon  with  a 
knife,  securing  them' against  invasion,  and  oc- 
cupying them,  (as  they  suppose,)  by  as  good 
a  right,  and  with  more  regularity  nightly,  than 
the  rich  frequenters  of  Grace  Church  and  St. 
Patrick's,  their  pews,  with  their  names  embla- 
oned  on  polished  plates,  at  an  annual  rent  of 
five  hundred  dollars  the  pew. 

He  affects,  in  his  dramas,  thunder  and  light- 


188  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

ning,  long-swords,  casques,  and  black-whiskered 
villains,  with  mysterious  exits  and  entrances,  in 
preference  to  every-day  life.  In  bloody  and 
violent  death-scenes  he  revels  like  a  little 
pirate.  There  was  a  Mr.  Kirby — he  is  gone 
now,  poor  fellow — we  hope  he  passed  into  the 
other  world  at  theE.  H.  door  ! — who  had  great 
favor  among  the  Newsboys  by  his  convulsive, 
awful  manner  of  yielding  up  the  ghost  on  the 
stage.  Many  boys  whose  engagements  did 
not  permit  an  entire  attendance,  have  paid  the 
full  price  to  be  in  at  one  of  Kirby's  death- 
struggles.  They  were  unquestionably  the 
most  magnificent  things  (of  their  kind)  ever 
seen  in  this  country.  The  Newsboys,  however, 
held  the  late  Mr.  Kirby  to  a  strict  account.  If 
he  omitted  a  single  groan  or  distortion  of  fea- 
ture, there  was  a  general  howl  of  disapproba- 
tion through  the  pit,  and  that  actor  was  com- 
pelled, more  than  once,  to  go  through  a  death- 
struggle  a  second  and  even  a  third  time,  till  it 


THE    NEWSBOYS.  189 

satisfied  the  high  requirements  of  these  young 
censors. 

Not  only  in  his  keen  judgment  in  such  ques- 
tions of  Art,  but  in  all  Newsboy  accomplish- 
ments, the  New  York  practitioner,  compared 
with  the  Newsboy  of  other  cities,  takes  the 
lead  by  several  lengths,  in  speed  of  foot,  power 
of  vociferation,  rapidity  of  utterance,  force  of 
character — in  fact,  like  every  thing  New  York, 
he  is  at  the  head  of  his  class.  After  the 
theatre,  the  chief  luxury  of  the  Newsboy  is,  in 
common,  a  glass  or  half-a-dozen  glasses  of  a 
crimson  whity  mixture,  supposed  to  be  or  to 
stand  for  ice-cream  ;  and  in  winter,  an  equal 
number  of  cups  of  gloomy  coffee,  at  a  penny  a 
cup,  as  the  other  is  a  penny  a  glass.  No  won- 
der they  have  customs  and  usages  of  their 
own  :  for  this  is,  certainly,  a  peculiar  business 
which  summons  forth  young  boys,  mere  lads, 
at  all  hours,  associating  them  in  a  manner  with 
the  mighty  Press,  at  that  early  time  of  life, 
and  cramming  their  pockets  with  silver,  more 


190  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

spend ing-money  than  the  richest  merchant's 
son,  which  they  may  disburse,  when,  how,  and 
where  they  desire,  without  accountability  to 
any  one.  They  often  make  two  and  three  dol- 
lars from  a  steamer's  "  Extra,"  in  an  hour ; 
selling  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty 
papers,  at  a  heavy  advance  on  first  cost.  It  is 
the  duty  of  the  Newsboy  to  watch  the  Press, 
as  a  rat  watches  a  mouse;  to  be  on  hand  at  all 
hours,  seasonable  and  unseasonable,  for  foreign 
or  domestic  news  of  importance,  as  much  as 
the  editors  or  proprietors  of  the  journal.  At 
the  moment  of  delivery,  he  seizes  the  reeking 
paper,  and  rushing  forth  like  one  distracted, 
they  fill  all  the  streets  of  the  city,  far  and  near, 
in  an  inconceivably  short  space  of  time,  with 
their  bold  and  startling  cries.  These  are  not 
always  to  be  taken  as  Gospel.  They  sometimes 
bring  on  a  revolution  impromptu,  and  depose 
a  king  without  notice.  Against  certain  mem- 
bers of  the  royal  families  of  Europe,  they  seem 
to   cherish  a  bitter   spite.      We  believe   the 


THE    NEWSBOYS.  191 

Newsboys  itched  for  months  to  announce  the 
deposition  of  Louis  Phillippe  :  as  much  might 
have  been  inferred  from  the  fervor — the  more 
than  fervor,  the  fury — with  which  they  bel- 
lowed out  his  downfall,  when,  at  last,  it  did 
come.  We  think,  as  a  body,  they  would  an- 
nounce the  flight  of  Prince  Albert  and  Queen 
Victoria,  and  the  disruption  of  the  British 
Empire,  with  the  greatest  satisfaction.  As  in 
all  communities  there  are  leaders,  so  there  are 
Chief  Newsboys  or  Foremen  ;  small  Capital- 
ists, who  furnish  the  papers  to  the  boys,  re- 
quiring an  account  at  night,  and  allowing  them 
a  part  of  the  profits  or  reasonable  wages.  It 
is  to  these — to  whom  King  Mark  McGuire  is 
the  Chief — that  the  "  bursted-up"  boys  apply, 
to  be  set  up  again  in  business,  when  by  impro- 
vidence or  neglect,  they  have  become  insolvent. 
The  Newsboys,  for  the  sake  of  the  fresh  air, 
sometimes  make  short  trips  down  East,  or  to 
Albany,  in  the  steamboats,  or  on  the  cars  be- 
tween the  cities,  getting  a  free  passage,  (with 


192  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

a  newspaper  or  two  to  the  clerk  or  conductor,) 
and  selling  what  they  can  by  the  way.  The 
city,  is,  however  their  main  stay. 

We  have  been  told  that  Newsboys  have 
been  seen  at  cock-fights,  in  back-yards  and  sub- 
terranean places  about  the  city  ;  and  that  they 
have  even  figured  as  owners  of  game-fowls. 
This  we  do  not  believe.  It's  a  scandal  put  in 
circulation  by  the  enemies  of  the  brotherhood. 
That  the}^  swear,  fight,  cheat,  and  run  wild  at 
night,  we  have  frankly  admitted,  but  the  cock- 
fights we  deny.  We  have  a  friendship  for  the 
Order,  and  we  must  make  a  stand  somewhere. 
It  has  also  been  asserted  (from  some  touches 
of  grandeur  we  have  noticed  glimmering  out 
from  among  his  rags — we  can  believe  this,) 
that  in  the  pride  of  his  spirit,  and  in  the  dig- 
nity of  his  intimate  connection  with  the  pub- 
lic journals,  two  or  three  newsboys  have  been 
known  to  club  together,  and  purchase  at  auc- 
tion, a  horse  and  wagon — both  of  light  build — 
(value   of  the  outfit,   including  harness,  tail- 


THE    NEWSBOYS.  193 

board,  &c,  $4.25,)  with  which  they  have  been 
seen  sporting  in  afternoon  rides  on  the  Avenue, 
like  so  many  young  gentlemen  of  fortune. 

We  wonder  whether  it  has  ever  occurred  to 
any  Newsboy  of  reflecting  turn,  what  a  mighty 
instrument  for  good  or  evil,  he  has  in  that  voice 
of  his — the  peace  of  how  many  families  he  has 
broken  or  cheered  by  his  loud  and  long  cry  of 
steamer  or  packet — what  mischief  he  has 
wrought  by  false  alarms — how  many  ears  have 
been  strained  to  catch  its  far-off*  sound,  whose 
all  of  weal  or  woe  in  this  life,  hung  suspended 
on  the  Newsboy's  breath. 

A  piece  of  advice  we  shall  venture,  as  the 
friends  of  these  young  gentlemen  :  If  the  pas- 
sion is  strong  upon  them  to  dabble  in  literature, 
let  them  stick  to  the  legitimate  business  of  the 
Morning  and  Evening  newspapers,  regular  and 
extra,  and  not  allow  themselves  to  be  seduced 
by  grown  men,  (who  should  have  more  sense 
and  self-respect,)  to  deal  in  dirty  foreign 
novels,  and  filthy  compositions  of  home  manu- 


194  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

facture  on  a  similar  mode].  Let  them  shun 
the  contraband  sale  of  obscene  books  and 
prints,  as  they  would  red-hot  coals  of  fire ; 
which  would  burn  up  in  them  every  good  prin- 
ciple, and  reduce  them  to  a  sapless,  ashy,  and 
worthless  old  age.  We  can  imagine  no  more 
pitiful  or  revolting  sight  than  one  of  these  chil- 
dren, under  the  promptings  of  some  old  fiend 
of  mischief  from  behind  his  "  respectable" 
counter,  sneaking  about  the  hotels,  steamboat 
landings,  and  public  parks,  having  concealed 
in  his  bosom,  the  seeds  of  ruin,  and  stealthily 
seeking  to  cast  them  in  the  laps  of  others. 
Heaven  must  weep  and  devils  grin,  when  poison 
is  so  diffused  with  a  double  damnation,  killing 
the  soul  of  buyer  and  seller  with  a  subtle  and 
fatal  power.  Boys  !  you  had  better  jump  into 
a  furnace  at  white  heat,  than  to  have  any  thing 
more  to  do  with  this  low  and  nasty  traffic  ! 
Stick  to  the  newspapers  ! 

What  kind  of  citizens  these  Newsboys  will 
make — what  kind  of  creatures  will  spring  from 


THE    CRYSTAL    PALACE.  195 

these  mixed  elements  of  turmoil,  street-running, 
precocious  activity  of  body  and  mind,  and  pre- 
cocious profusion  of  cash,  no  one  can  guess; 
for  the  system — started  some  ten  or  fifteen 
years  since — has  not  been  long  enough  in  ope- 
ration to  bring  many  of  them  of  age.  Onr  best 
wishes  are  with  the  Boys. 


I  am  not  going  to  put  myself  out  of  favor 
with  all  mankind,  by  asserting  that  this  is  the 
finest  Panorama  ever  penned  or  painted,  and 
that  New  York  is  the  only  city  in  all  Christen- 
dom worthy  of  such  special  pictorial  notice  ; 
but  this  I  will  say,  ladies  and  gentlemen — I 
have  said  it  before  and  I  will  abide  by  it  now — 
New  York  is  the  eldest  and  favorite  child  of 
Brother  Jonathan,  and  that  whatever  toy  he 
takes  a  fancy  to,  the  boy  must  be  indulged  in 
his  humor.  Yorkey  has  taken  a  fancy  for  a 
Crystal  Palace,  and  a  Crystal  Palace  the  darly- 


196  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

darling  shall  have.  The  lad  must  every  now 
and  then  be  furnished  with  a  knob,  a  good,  big, 
palpable  knob,  to  open  the  door  to  some  new 
amusement,  and  here  he  has  it.  By  some 
secret  law  of  aggregation,  analogous  to  the 
movements  of  the  blood  in  the  human  system, 
the  world  comes  periodically  to  a  head  upon 
some  spot  on  its  surface,  and  breaks  out  at 
pretty  regular  intervals,  with  a  new  island  at 
sea,  a  volcano  on  lnnd,  an  Eglinton  tournament, 
or  a  World's  Fair.  These  may  be  vents  of 
relief  or  tumors  indicating  foregone  excesses 
of  the  old  globe,  which,  being  once  fairly  dis- 
charged, the  world  is  free  for  a  time  to  pursue 
its  regular  paths  with  the  steady  gait  of  puri- 
fied convalescence  ;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
may  be  looked  on  as  the  crests  or  knolls  of 
history,  by  the  use  of  which  Time  advances 
from  one  era  of  development  to  another.  It  is 
doubtless  in  this  fairer  light  that  observers  are 
just  now  disposed  to  speculate  upon  the  Exhi- 
bition  of  the    World's  Industry  in   this  very 


THE    CRYSTAL    FALACE.  197 

Metropolis  of  New  York.  As  a  mere  assem- 
blage of  people,  it  will  prove  one  of  the  most 
motley  and  various  within  the  remembrance 
of  man  :  not  a  clime  nor  country,  however  far 
removed  from  that  centre,  but  will  have  its 
representative,  urged  thither  by  all  the  preter- 
natural agencies  of  our  times ;  stimulated  to 
the  very  extremities  of  the  earth  by  steamer, 
railway,  and  telegraph  ;  and  in  the  Crystal 
Palace,  Eeservoir  Square,  Manhattan  Island, 
the  Tower  of  Babel  will  rise  again,  in  a  confu- 
sion of  tongues  which  no  polyglot  nor  series  of 
polyglots  can  ever  attempt  to  interrupt.  The 
place  is  New  York  ;  the  products  are  the  con- 
tributions of  all  nations — there  are  no  other 
elements  of  unity  discoverable — and  what 
white  men  call  hodge-podge,  and  the  Indians 
harum-scarum,  will  inevitably  rule  the  univer- 
sal medley.  No  scheme  could  have  been  de- 
vised by  metaphysical  ingenuity  so  likely  to 
draw  into  question  the  unity  of  our  race ;  and 
we  can  imagine  something  of  the  astonishment 


198  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

with  which  the  representatives  of  the  different 
points  of  the  compass  will  find  themselves  in 
contact  —  ail  bi-furcated  creatures  —  without 
any  other  possible  point  of  alliance  or  sympa- 
thy: None  other  than  the  Grand  Central 
Building  known  as 

THE  CRYSTAL  PALACE. 

If  we  fancy  the  Island  of  Manhattan  a  great 
hump  whale  which  has  struck  for  the  Atlantic 
by  the  way  of  the  Highlands  of  the  Hudson 
River,  and  has  come  to  a  pause  with  its  snout 
in  the  Bay  of  New  York,  the  Crystal  Palace, 
midway  up  between  the  two  rivers,  will  stand 
for  the  hump.  And — oh  !  Bacchus,  son  of 
Semele  ! — what  seas  of  drink  we  have  about 
us,  for  the  whale  to  swim  in — from  what  oceans 
of  julep,  and  cobbler,  and  punch,  and  port,  and 
toddy,  does  that  beautiful  dome  spring  into 
the  air.  One  would  fancy  from  the  great 
abundance  of  springs  of  a  peculiar  sort  here- 
about,  that   the  Crystal  Palace  was   a  fairy 


THE    CRYSTAL    PALACE.  199 

structure  in  the  desert.  Look  around  !  Here 
is  the  Empire  House  and  the  Troy  House, 
and  the  Trojan  House ;  Jones's,  Cox's,  The 
Tontine,  The  Albion,  and,  in  a  perfect  swarm, 
the  whole  military  family  of  the  Thompson's, 
(powerful  in  the  drinking  line,)  Colonel  Thomp- 
son's, Major  Thompson's,  Captain  Thompson's, 
Corporal  Thompson's.  We  all  exclaim,  what  a 
dreadful  thirsty  neighborhood  is  this  ?  As  if 
all  the  publicans  in  the  world  had  said — and 
with  a  truth — as  Sir  Charles  Lyell,  English 
Commissioner  to  the  American  Exhibition, 
would  certify  to  us — "  That's  a  sandy  soil  up 
there — dry  as  Sahara — we  must  go  up  thither 
and  moisten  it :  come,  ye  mighty  pourers-out 
of  cobbler,  ye  mixers  of  punch,  concocters  of 
cock-tail,  and  all  ye  other  sons  of  the  bar — the 
earth  gapes  for  drink  !"  And  then,  beside  the 
human  necessities,  behold  !  what  cattle — the 
twelve  fat  oxen,  and  the  mammoth  steers,  that 
huge  living  crocodile,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
dancing  bear,  and  the  anaconda  from  Brazil, 


200  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

the  alligator  nine  feet  long,  (there's  stowage 
for  fluids  !)  the  three  live  rattlesnakes,  the  calf 
with  six  legs,  and  the  wonderful  cow  with 
double  horns — (two  men  to  wait  on  her  alone  !) 
Was  there  ever  such  surrounding  to  such  a 
structure  ? 

But,  my  friends,  let  us  tarry  no  longer  with- 
out— let  us  enter  the  beautiful  building :  it  is 
about  to  be  opened  this  day.  We  have  crossed 
the  threshold,  and  all  those  eccentric  surround- 
ings are  forgotten — we  are  now  in  a  new 
world.  How  far  away  stretch  the  aisles  !  how 
loftily  the  dome  lifts  up  !  and  riding  through 
the  centre,  as  author  and  master  of  the  scene, 
that  great  image  of  Washington  horsed  in 
bronze — serenely  he  regards  this  scene  of  tran- 
quil industry  as  there  he  sits  aloft — the  Man 
without  bigotry,  without  bias,  acting  for  all, 
aided  by  all;  a  renown  great  at  the  beginning  : 
deepening  its  hold,  spreading  its  base,  and  lift- 
ing loftier  its  summit  in  every  subsequent  gen- 
eration :  energetic  in  a  righteous  war,  equally 


THE    CRYSTAL    PALACE.  201 

ready  for  a  righteous  peace :  honored  by  all 
honorable  men  at  home  and  abroad.  Even  as 
on  that  great  horse,  upon  the  affections  of  the 
People  he  marches  on  over  the  land,  and  we 
bless  the  day  that  gave  him  to  us; 

The  day  to  us  this  man  was  born, 
Whose  memory  is  like  the  morn, 
Which  riseth  calmly  in  the  East 
And  brightens  on  toward  the  West, 
Each  hour  more  lovely  and  more  blest ! 

Far  shores  and  isles  behold,  and  praise 
The  champion  of  our  gloomy  days — 
Happy  the  father  of  such  son, 
Happy  the  mother  who  upon 
His  cradle  poured  her  benison  ! 

He  was  a  child  of  Truth  and  Peace, 
And  loved  the  silent  fields'  increase — 
The  sword  he  took  and  laid  aside, 
Calmly,  and  with  far  less  of  pride 
Than  when  he  mowed  with  sickle  wide  • 


202  THE    PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

Behold  !  how  the  crowds  of  fair  women  and 
quick  eyed  men,  throng  from  the  galleries, 
spread  themselves  thick  upon  platforms  about 
the  floors — the  trumpets  are  blown,  and  enter 
— successor  to  the  mighty  man  there  up  on 
high — the  present  President  of  the  United 
States — the  Palace  is  inaugurated — and  as  if 
contact  with  him  were  electrical,  and  had  some- 
thing of  the  virtue  ascribed  in  old  times  to  the 
royal  touch,  there  is  a  general  dash  for  the  Pre- 
sidential hand — he  wheels — he  grasps — now 
you  see  him  and  now  you  don't ! — he  is  over- 
borne as  by  the  waves  of  the  sea — men  of  all 
nations,  of  all  climes,  are  there,  eager  to  ac- 
knowledge the  living  embodiment  of  our  great 
Continent,  The  crowds  melt  away  from  the 
platforms,  trickle  off  from  the  galleries — all  is 
still — the  glorious  light  of  the  moon  beams 
through  the  dome — and  Washington,  still  riding 
triumphantly,  is  alone  in  the  House  Beautiful ! 


bird's-eye  view  of  the  city.         203 

We  have  now,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  passed 
some  time  together  upon  the  level  ground — we 
have  been  up  street  and  down  street,  across 
the  town  and  about  the  town  :  and  now  by 
way  of  a  final  novelty  have  you  any  objection 
to  rise  with  me  into  the  air  and  from  a  con- 
siderable elevation,  (not  quite  as  lofty  as  the 
Alps  or  Mount  Blanc,)  to  get  a  notion  of  the 
Metropolis  as  a  whole,  and  in  the  far-com- 
manding position  it  bears  on  the  general  map 
of  the  country  ?  Up  we  go,  then,  to  take  our 
grand  closing 

BIRD'S- EYE  VIEW  OF  tfEW  YORK  FROM   LAT- 
TING'S   OBSERVATORY. 

Having  breathed  our  way  three  hundred 
feet,  to  the  highest  window  of  the  wooden 
tower,  (which  is  dashed  down  just  at  the  side 
of  the  Crystal  Palace,  like  a  tall  mark  of  ex- 
clamation at  the  completion  and  beauty  of  that 
structure,)  in  the  grey  of  morning,  we  see  a 
mighty  blank  of  haze  spread  on   every  side 


204  THE    PEN-AND-INK     PANORAMA. 

from  which  emerges,  first  some  houses  near  at 
hand,  then,  as  the  sun  unrolls  the  wide  veil, 
there  comes  out  more  and  more  of  the  great 
city,  the  two  rivers,  the  East  and  the  North, 
then  the  suburbs ;  Brooklyn,  near  by,  rising  on 
its  heights  ;  New  Jersey,  with  its  great  factory 
chimney ;  Hoboken,  wTith  its  green  walks ; 
"Williamsburgh,  with  its  countless  little  cot- 
tages ;  then  in  the  Bay,  the  Islands,  Governor's, 
with  its  dark  stone  fort ;  Gibbet's,  (where  the 
pirates  are  hung) ;  Staten  Island,  with  ridgy 
back ;  villages  dropped  along  the  shore ;  Pater- 
son  with  the  Falls,  scarcely  visible ;  farther  on 
in  Jersey,  Newark,  quite  conspicuous  ;  the  Nar- 
rows, with  early  ships  coming  in,  all  sail  set, 
or  fading  awray  into  the  distant  ocean  ;  GowTan- 
us,  on  Long  Island,  with  the  gleaming  monu- 
ments of  Greenwood  Cemetery  here  and  there 
discernible  ;  Bedford  ;  Flatbush,  with  its  tidy 
w7hite  country  mansions,  almost  lost  in  trees  ; 
Jamaica,  with  its  celebrated  race-course ; 
Newtown  ;  then,  re-crossing  the  East  River, 


bird's-eye  view  of  the  city.  205 

Yorkville,  springing  up  among  the  rocks ; 
Bloomingdale.  advertized  by  its  single  church- 
steeple  ;  Harlem,  a  good  deal  at  random,  but 
defined  by  its  heights  and  the  bridge ;  and  be- 
yond all,  Morrisania,  and  divers  steeples,  prick- 
ing up  in  "Westchester  County,  as  far  as  the 
eye  can  reach.  As  for  the  city  itself,  it  bears, 
generally,  a  flat  appearance  ;  as  of  a  level  har- 
vest field  bristling  with  spires — the  streets,  at 
that  height  are  so  many  threads.  At  sunrise, 
or  just  before,  a  faint  murmur  of  life  begins  to 
creep  up,  lumbering  market-wagons  are  com- 
ing in  from  the  country  for  the  first  sales  ;  as 
the  day  advances,  it  grows  rapidly  with  sounds 
of  carts,  stages,  labor,  factories,  the  clang  of 
iron,  the  racket  of  stores,  the  cries  of  workmen  ; 
human  feet,  thousands  upon  thousands  beating 
the  pavement  every  minute — into  a  mighty 
roar,  or  rather  moaning,  as  of  a  great  bull ;  no 
one  sound  distinguishable  from  another,  ex- 
cept, perhaps,  a  well-blown  trumpet  blast  when 
a  band   of  music   passes  directly  under  the 


206  THE   PEN-A\TD-1NK     PANORAMA, 

tower.  Scarcely  anything  is  sharply  marked 
enough  to  discolor  the  broad  stream  of  life ; 
you  may  see  the  white-backed  omnibuses 
pouring  down  Broadway  in  quick  succession  ; 
a  military  procession  tinges  it  with  a  few 
streaks  of  red  and  white.  You  always  see 
flags  flying  over  the  city,  but  you  can't  tell  at 
that  height  whether  they  are  at  the  top  of  the 
staff,  half-mast,  or  run  down ;  whether  for  a 
rejoicing  or  a  calamity.  The  shipping  you  can't 
help  taking  notice  of,  if  you  would  ;  it  fringes 
the  city  like  a  heavy  beard  ;  contending  with 
the  church-spires,  and  out-numbering  them 
a  hundred  to  one.  Sails  are  making  for 
New  York  from  every  direction,  down  the 
Sound  through  Hell  Gate,  and  the  East 
River;  on  the  broad  Hudson;  in  from  the 
Ocean  ;  ships,  sloops,  steamboats ;  an  everlast- 
ing activity  of  these  last  from  morning  till 
night,  plying  in  the  rivers  and  about  the  Bay. 
And,  running  your  eye  about  the  limits  of  the 
city  proper,  you  begin  to   acquire  from  that 


bird's-eye  view  of  the  city.         207 

commanding  look-out,  some  idea  of  the  vast 
size — the  gro\ving  power  and  expansion  of  the 
city.  You  have  known  it  before  piece-meal — 
a  street  here,  a  building  or  two  there — but  now 
you  see  it  in  the  mass,  stretching  towards  the 
East,  stretching  towards  theWest — with  chim- 
neys innumerable,  avenues,  parks,  public  build- 
ings, huddling  upon  each  other,  as  if  no  man 
could  count  them.  In  the  edges  you  do  not 
see  it  growing  as  in  its  infancy,  with  a  strag- 
gling house  here  or  there  ;  but  whole  blocks 
and  squares  of  new  edifices  starting  from 
the  ground  at  once,  and  in  a  hurried  rivalry 
of  brick  and  mortar,  racing  out  of  town. 
As  a  sort  of  morality  for  yourself,  in  this 
ascent  and  approach  to  heaven,  by  way  of 
this  lofty  wooden  tower,  you  acquire  some- 
thing of  a  heaven-like  consciousness  of  the 
unimportance  of  earth,  and  affairs  earthly; 
for  you  cannot  make  out — you  cannot  bring 
home  to  yourself — strain  your  eyes  as  you 
may — a    single   object   which    engages    your 


208  THE   PEN-AND-INK    PANORAMA. 

worldly  interests  or  affections,  when  you  are 
at  your  ordinary  level  below — youV  shop,  your 
house,  your  church — (that  which,  in  its  peculiar 
purity,  you  think  Heaven  must  surely  take 
notice  of) — where  are  they,  in  all  that  heap  of 
things  ?  Specks,  dust,  fly-blows.  One  thing, 
however,  and  above  all,  you  are  clearly  sensi- 
ble of  at  that  great  height — you  feel  it,  if  you 
do  not  see  it — a  universal  movement  of  all  the 
inland  country  towards  New  York  as  its  cen- 
tre ;  everything,  by  an  irresistible  impulse  or 
momentum,  driving  or  driven  on  towards  the 
city.  It  is  not  merely  so  much  of  the  neigh- 
borhood as  you  can  reach  in  an  easy  walk,  that 
belongs  to  New  York,  but  the  whole  country 
as  far  as  the  eye  can  sweep — farther,  too,  than 
that — is  its  suburb.  There's  not  a  man  in  a 
distant  wagon,  on  a  far-away  Jersey  road,  not 
a  ploughman  in  the  field  in  the  very  depth  of 
Westchester,  nor  a  fisherman  toiling  in  the 
ocean,  ever  so  far  from  land,  whose  heart  is 
not  fixed  on  New  York,  who  is  not  thinking  of 


bird's-eye  view  of  the  city.  209 

the  markets  and  the  cash  of  the  metropolis, 
when  he  drives  his  cart,  or  marks  his  furrow, 
or  casts  his  net.  The  birds  that  pass,  as  they 
often  do,  at  this  starry  height,  cannot,  with  all 
their  strength  of  wing,  fly  to  where  New- York 
is  not  a  paramount  idea,  affecting  the  business 
and  the  conduct  of  men. 


Ladies  and  gentlemen,  the  Pen-and-ink- 
Panorama  of  New-York  City  is  closed — I  am 
much  obliged  to  you  for  your  attendance,  and 
hope  to  have  the  pleasure  of  meeting  you 
again. 

TH  E     END. 


\ 


